With a whopping 140-minute runtime — the longest animated film ever produced by an American studio — and truly countless styles, characters, settings, and narrative devices, there's no doubt that the team behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has been working exceptionally hard since the almost identically-named 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But given that they're now on an even tighter timeline for the (again, redundantly-titled) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse releasing in less than 300 days, I'm genuinely worried for their physical and mental health.

If the animators are suffering, though, it's for a good cause, as these films are truly a delight. Memorable, unique, and captivating, even at longer-than-expected runtimes, this newest installment in the series continues the first movie's earth-shattering arrival onto the scene, pushing the boundaries for what audiences can expect from superhero movies, animation, and Sony Animation as a studio (previously infamous for some of the worst franchises in animation, including Surf's Up, The Smurfs, and The Angry Birds Movie).

The movie dedicates its whole first section before the title card to Gwen (voiced capably by Hailee Steinfeld), reminding the audience what happened previously, how the multiverse works, and what our main character is grappling with. Much of her background is eye-rollingly familiar — spider bite, social isolation, tense relationships with the police force, keeping secrets from parental figures — but once we get past it and into the action, the slow start is forgivable. A funny and well-choreographed first boss fight in the Guggenheim, against a multiverse-produced Renaissance-era Vulture (voiced by my hot-take favorite member of The Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone), introduces us to the crux of the film's plot, a not-so-secret cabal of Spider-people (led excellently by a somber and gravelly Oscar Isaac and less-excellently by a forgettable Issa Rae).

From there, we're (re) introduced to Miles Morales, who's slightly more annoying that Gwen but less cringy than Tobey Maguire and less frustrating than Andrew Garfield. (If I had a nickel for every time that Shameik Moore played an urban high-school student with Ivy League ambitions and heavy-handed voiceover narration, I'd have two nickles, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice right?) But just as he did in Dope seven years ago, Moore fits the role well, and he explores his world and parallel ones with humor and charisma. 

The familiarity of everyone's background, and redundancy in always repeating it, becomes a bit, as "canon" is introduced as a patterned plot point that the self-aware Spider-people have noticed and tracked. This is a little grating in the way that all multiverse movies are, but mostly explained well and rewardingly, as are the rest of the many, many plot points.

The voice acting from everyone is impeccable: parents voiced by Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Vélez are warm and loving, Jason Schwartzman brings his Rushmore know-it-all energy to the primary antagonist, and Karan Soni is a standout of the Spider-people. 

Animation is completely enrapturing, as art forms match the action in every scene. Watercolors seep down the backdrop like tears when Gwen has emotional showdowns with her father; Hobie's punk persona is captured by ripped-paper cutouts; a gritty villain reveal is painted with graffiti-splatter coloring. The soundtrack is equally strong, a Metro Boomin-led powerhouse album that thumps along with active scenes and croons with more reflective ones. (The album doesn't live as a standalone as well as peers like Black Panther, however; Offset saying "spider" over and over again is pretty laughable, and other A-listers have some pretty cringy thematic lines, like Future's "My gang, we the Avengers / solitaries, like Venom" or Lil Uzi's "Got no time for mingling, my senses tingling / but if I take my mask off I blend in.") 

Ultimately, though, this otherwise strong four-and-a-half star film for me is ruined by a top cinematic pet peeve; a movie that stops in the middle of the action, with no end in its own right, just to set up a sequel. The fact that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse can't muster its own climax in over two hours let me down, and although I'll no doubt be back in theatres next March, it'll be with a twinge of annoyance.