(2018)

Submitted by Evan B

Pooper:
Miles harnesses his powers, assists the other Spider heroes in returning to their timelines, and defeats Kingpin. He ends by becoming his universe’s Spider-Man and noting that anybody can be Spider-Man under the mask.

Long Ending:
The film opens with Peter Parker (voiced by Chris Pine) discussing his origin story. He was bitten by a genetically altered spider, his uncle Ben was murdered, learned lessons (“with great power comes great responsibility”), fought crime, and got to marry his girlfriend Mary Jane (Zoë Kravitz). He says he loves being the only Spider-Man there is and ever will be.

High school student Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) has been accepted into a fancy boarding school, but is unsure that he wants to go. Though generally a good kid, he also likes to graffiti his name around New York and constantly butts heads with his police officer father Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry). Miles is encouraged by his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) in his creativity and rule breaking. One night, during a graffiti session, Miles is bitten by a genetically altered spider and given spider powers (including a few powers Spider-Man doesn’t traditionally have like the power to shock people and turn invisible).

After realizing he has Spider powers, he goes to investigate the area where he was bitten and stumbles upon a secret experiment run by mob boss Wilson Fisk, aka, Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) and his head scientist Octavia (Kathryn Hahn). Kingpin is attempting to open a wormhole to other dimensions as in this dimension, his wife and child were killed while fleeing from him when they witnessed him trying to kill Spider-Man. But his machine could cause a black hole to manifest and destroy the city. Miles bumps into Peter/Spider-Man and Peter says he will train the young Miles before swinging off to stop Kingpin. Spider-Man engages in combat with two of Kingpin’s enforcers – the Green Goblin and the Prowler. Spider-Man is pushed into the dimensional rift but manages to cause the machine to explode. Gravely wounded, Peter asks Miles to finish the job and bring Kingpin down for good. Kingpin then kills Spider-Man as Miles flees from the site.

As New York mourns the death of their hero, Miles is wholly unable to control his superpowers. He even damages a device Spider-Man gave him that would shut down the dimension-hopping machine once Kingpin rebuilds it. Eventually, Miles meets Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), who got sucked into this universe from his own universe when Kingpin opened the dimensional rift. This Parker is older and overweight, suffers emotional trauma from a legal separation from Mary Jane, and has generally become jaded about crimefighting. Parker begrudgingly agrees to help Miles fight Kingpin after realizing that if he stays in this new universe too long, his atoms will destabilize. Miles and Parker infiltrate Kingpin’s lab, end up fighting Octavia (who is revealed to be this dimension’s Dr. Octopus), and escape with Octavia’s files only thanks to the intervention of Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld) – a teenager from yet another dimension. In her universe, she was bitten by a genetically altered spider and suffered trauma when her universe’s Peter Parker (her best friend) was killed.

The trio decide to visit Aunt May (Lily Tomlin), Peter Parker’s Aunt, to see if she has any knowledge of this universe’s Spider-Man they can use to rebuild the device Miles broke. Not only does she have access to a high tech lab Peter Parker built, but she also has found three other Spider-people from other universes. They include a “noir” Spider-Man from a universe where everything is black and white (Nicolas Cage), an anime-style Spider-Woman called Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) who is a tech genius and uses a robot to fight crime, and a cartoon hero called Spider-Ham (John Mulaney) who is a talking pig with Spider powers. They join forces, and plan to use Kingpin’s rebuilt machine to send them home before Miles destroys the machine.

The Spider group is attacked by a gang of villains working for Kingpin, and Miles utterly freezes up and proves to be a liability in battle. He is eventually pursued by the Prowler, who is revealed to be Miles’ uncle Aaron. Miles reveals his identity to Prowler, and Prowler refuses to kill him. Seeing Prowler fail to follow instructions, Kingpin fatally shoots him. After the battle, the other Spider-people incapacitate Miles and tell him he can’t participate in the final conflict due to his inexperience. As a result, one of the other Spider-people will need to stay behind to destroy the machine (and will thus die as the cells of all the alternate dimension characters are deteriorating). Peter B. Parker volunteers to sacrifice himself (clearly not wanting to face his problems at home). Before they leave, Miles asks when he knows he will be ready to be a superhero. Parker responds he’ll never know when he’ll be ready, he just needs to take a leap of faith.

After receiving a loving talk from his dad (who doesn’t know Miles is Spider-Man), Miles takes a literal leap off a skyscraper and manages to harness all of his powers. Miles rushes off to aid the other Spider-people in their battle against Kingpin. They defeat all of Kingpin’s henchmen (including Dr. Octopus) and return all the alternate versions home. Miles even convinces Parker to go back to his universe and try to rebuild his wrecked life. Kingpin then personally attacks Miles, but Miles overpowers Kingpin and destroys the machine. Having emerged victorious (and having earned the respect of his father, who witnessed the new Spider-Man’s heroics in battle), Miles embraces his role as this universe’s Spider-Man. He notes that anyone can be a Spider-Man under their mask.

In a post-credit scene, Spider-Man from the year 2099 develops a self-contained dimension hopping device. He uses it to go “back to the beginning,” and transports into the Spider-Man cartoon from the 1960s. He gets into a comical battle with the poorly animated Spider-Man he finds there.

01 hours 57 minutes