Hold onto your web-shooters, True Believers! “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” just picked up the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. And while the Best Animated category has been dominated in year’s past by Disney and Pixar, this year not even Mr. Incredible and his “Incredibles 2” could snatch the trophy from Miles Morales’ and Peter Parker’s wall-crawling hands.
Coming into December 2018, pretty much every Oscars analyst had already penciled in “Incredibles 2” as the eventual Academy Award winner. No one was expecting Sony to release one of the year’s best films, and one of the most revolutionary animated films in recent memory, with ‘Into the Spider-Verse.’ But now, fully christened the Oscar spoiler, ‘Spider-Verse’ earns its rightful place among the very best the animated genre has to offer.
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With animation that is not only perfect for its storytelling (for the first time, truly bringing a comic book to life) but is also one-of-a-kind and patent-worthy, ‘Spider-Verse’ did things that are rarely done in the film industry. It’s not every year that a film comes along and changes the game for a genre, but this Sony film did just that. We can fully expect those copycat films to be hitting theaters in the years to come, much like how 3D CGI animation became the norm years ago.
But incredible, unique animation isn’t the only reason that ‘Spider-Verse’ took home the Oscar gold this year. The film boasted some of the best voice-acting we’ve heard in quite some time. From Shameik Moore’s loveable loser take on Miles Morales and Jake Johnson’s funny, but sad, old guy Peter Parker to Bryan Tyree Henry’s Jefferson Davis, who everyone wants as their dorky dad, there isn’t a role in the film that wasn’t perfectly brought to life by the actor hired. Hell, outside of “Mandy,” this film might have the best Nic Cage performance of the last decade, full stop.
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All this beautiful animation and wonderful acting was just the foundation to a story that brought a tear to many an eye over the last few months, with universal themes of growing up, dealing with adversity, and becoming a version of yourself that you never knew existed just to name a few.
This is all to say that “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is one of the most well-deserved Oscar wins of the year, despite a strong field of competition including the aforementioned ‘Incredibles’ sequel (don’t worry, Pixar, you’ll be back in winner’s circle soon enough, we’re sure), “Isle of Dogs,” “Mirai,” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet.” Each one of those films could have won this category any given year.
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And with this Oscar win, we can finally close the book on “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” with one more accolade. Now, let’s see what Sony can do in the eventual sequel and spin-offs. Miles Morales isn’t the underdog anymore.
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