Spider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseSave

Brooklyn, present day. Earth-1610 — the Ultimate Marvel comics universe. Peter Parker (Chris Pine) is the resident Spider-Man of his Earth and has been for ten years. The opening montage is the most-stylized Spider-Man origin in cinema — sketched 2D panels of every Peter Parker beat the audience has seen across the previous decade of Spider-Man films, all collapsed into a single thirty-second narrated speed-run. Peter is in his late twenties. He has Mary Jane Watson as his wife. He has fully-public Spider-Man fame in his universe. He's the standard-bearer of his Earth's superhero life. The film's first sequence introduces him as a confident, blond, athletic Spider-Man — exactly the version the audience knows from the comics. Then the film cuts away from Peter, and Peter Parker dies on Earth-1610 within ten minutes.

Miles Morales. Brooklyn middle-school student Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), age fourteen, Afro-Latino, attending Visions Academy — an elite Manhattan boarding school he was assigned to via a state scholarship that his father Jefferson Davis (Brian Tyree Henry, doing voice work) insisted he attend. Miles is unhappy at Visions Academy. He's been raised in Brooklyn by his Black father Jeff (a Brooklyn NYPD officer) and Puerto Rican mother Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Velez). He doesn't fit at the elite academy. He misses Brooklyn. His uncle Aaron Davis (Mahershala Ali, who'd just won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Moonlight the year before), Jeff's estranged brother, lives in a Brooklyn high-rise apartment and lets Miles crash on weekends.

Aaron and Miles. Aaron picks Miles up from Visions Academy on a Friday afternoon and takes him to an abandoned NYC subway station — the old underused IRT Brooklyn tunnel below Sutter Avenue — to spray-paint graffiti together. Aaron has been Miles's secret cool-uncle for years. He's been encouraging Miles's artistic side. Miles paints a vivid streetwise mural. Aaron and Miles laugh. Then a small black-and-yellow radioactive spider — the Earth-42 spider that bit Miles's parallel-universe counterpart — drops onto Miles's hand and bites him. Miles doesn't notice for a few hours. He spends the night at Aaron's apartment.

Powers. Miles wakes up the next morning with abilities he doesn't understand. His hand stuck to his bedroom wall when he tried to push off it. He's grown a half-inch overnight. His school uniform doesn't fit. He's seeing static-electric energy at the corners of his eyes. He has been telepathically scanning everyone's emotional state. He has Spider-Man-style abilities — wall-crawling, super-reflexes, super-strength, and (uniquely) Venom Strike electrical-shock through his hands. He has also developed an ability his Peter Parker never had — temporary cloaking (he can turn invisible at will). He's terrified. He searches Google for "radioactive spider symptoms," finds an article about Peter Parker's career, and realizes he's the next Spider-Man.

Kingpin's collider. That night, Miles returns to the abandoned subway tunnel to find the spider that bit him. He doesn't find it. He does find — at the deepest level of the tunnel system — Kingpin Wilson Fisk's secret laboratory. Fisk (Liev Schreiber, in voice work) is Earth-1610's primary crime boss. He has been quietly building a massive Tesla-coil-style multi-dimensional collider beneath Brooklyn for years. The collider is meant to open a dimensional aperture to Earth-1610's parallel realities so that Fisk can retrieve his wife and son from an alternate universe where they didn't die in a car accident two years ago. The collider is illegal, unstable, and would likely tear apart Brooklyn (and possibly the entire Earth-1610 universe) if it fired.

Peter's death. Miles is in the tunnel watching the collider operate. Spider-Man — Earth-1610's Peter Parker — arrives at the lab to destroy the collider. Spider-Man, in his blue-and-red suit, recognizes Miles immediately as a fellow spider-bitten metahuman and adopts him as a junior sidekick. He hands Miles a USB drive containing the collider's shut-down code. Then Fisk arrives. Fisk and his enforcers — including the Green Goblin (an Ultimate-Marvel version, with massive monstrous proportions) and a fast-running technological villain called the Prowler — corner Spider-Man. The collider activates. Spider-Man and Green Goblin fight on the collider's exterior. The collider's first firing pulls dozens of versions of Spider-Man from across the multiverse into Earth-1610. Fisk crushes Spider-Man with a massive blow. Peter Parker dies on the lab floor with Miles watching from a hidden ventilation grate.

Miles goes home. Miles, terrified, escapes the collider lab with the USB shutdown drive. He returns to Aaron's apartment and confesses everything — that he's been bitten by a radioactive spider, that he just watched Peter Parker die, that he has the USB drive that could destroy Kingpin's collider. Aaron, who is hiding a secret of his own, says nothing about his Prowler identity. He drops Miles back at Visions Academy the next morning.

Peter B. Parker. The next day, Miles is at a Spider-Man memorial service in Times Square — the city is mourning the local Spider-Man's death. Miles, in his civilian clothes, walks past the memorial. Then a thirty-eight-year-old, balding, beer-bellied, divorced version of Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) — Earth-616's Spider-Man, pulled from his own reality into Earth-1610 by the collider's first firing — wanders into the memorial drunk and looking for a sandwich. This Peter B. Parker is the schlubby older Spider-Man we never see in mainstream comics. He's been Spider-Man for twenty-two years. He recently divorced Mary Jane. His back hurts. His knees crack when he web-swings. He's tired. He doesn't want to be a mentor. Miles, who can sense Spider-Man-DNA-resonance, recognizes him immediately. "Peter Parker. You're Peter Parker. Holy crap, I just watched you die." Peter B. Parker, dirty-haired and depressed, agrees to help Miles destroy the collider in exchange for getting Peter B. back to his home universe.

Training. Peter B. takes Miles to the abandoned subway lab to retrieve original-Peter's USB drive — they need its specific resonance signature to use the collider to send Peter B. home. The drive has been kept by Mary Jane Watson (Stan Lee cameo as a costume-shop owner). Peter B. trains Miles in the basics. The training montage is the film's most-charming sequence — Peter B. teaching Miles how to web-swing, how to use his Venom Strike, how to commit to leaping from skyscrapers. Miles is clumsy. He keeps falling. Peter B. is patient.

Other Spider-People arrive. Then the collider's second firing pulls additional spider-people into Earth-1610 — Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 (Hailee Steinfeld), the Spider-Gwen in white-and-pink costume; Peni Parker of Earth-14512 (Kimiko Glenn), a Japanese-anime-style fourteen-year-old in a giant mecha called SP//dr; Spider-Man Noir of Earth-90214 (Nicolas Cage), a 1930s-pulp-detective Spider-Man in monochrome black-and-white inked colors; and Spider-Ham of Earth-8311 (John Mulaney), a literal cartoon-pig version of Spider-Man called Peter Porker. All five spider-people meet in Aunt May's house and decide to coordinate.

The Prowler is Aaron. While Miles is recruiting his uncle Aaron for support, Aaron reveals his secret identity — he is the Prowler, a top-tier Kingpin enforcer who has been working for Wilson Fisk for ten years. Aaron has been Miles's uncle by day and Kingpin's hitman by night. He had been at Peter Parker's death. He had not known Miles was the new Spider-Man. He realizes the truth and refuses to harm his nephew. He defects from Kingpin's organization. Kingpin sends Tombstone to execute Aaron in an alley. Aaron dies in Miles's arms. The Prowler subplot — and Mahershala Ali's voice-performance — gives the film its most-emotional beat. Miles's foster-father-figure Aaron Davis dies as a redemption arc.

The leap of faith. Miles, devastated, can't seem to use his Spider-Man powers consistently. He keeps falling. He keeps getting his web-shooter angles wrong. He's been Spider-Man for two days and watched two Peter Parkers die in front of him. Peter B. Parker, in a quiet conversation in Miles's bedroom, tells him the secret all Spider-Men eventually learn: you don't choose when to leap. Your body knows when. "You'll know when you're ready." He hands Miles his own custom-painted black-and-red Spider-Man suit. Miles spray-paints his own version. He puts it on.

The skyscraper leap. Miles climbs to the top of a Manhattan skyscraper. He looks down. He leaps. He doesn't free-fall like before — this time, his body knows. He web-swings perfectly through the city. He twists in mid-air to fire a webline at a passing helicopter. He arcs across the Brooklyn Bridge in a swing that the film's animation team labors over for sixteen minutes of screen time. The Leap of Faith sequence is widely-cited as the most-influential animation moment in 2010s cinema. It's the moment Miles becomes Spider-Man.

Final battle. The collider's third firing — the major one — will both send Peter B., Spider-Gwen, Peni, Noir, and Spider-Ham back to their home universes AND destabilize Earth-1610 entirely. Kingpin plans to use it to pull his wife and son from a happier-alternate universe. Spider-Man, Peter B., Gwen, Peni, Noir, and Spider-Ham all infiltrate the collider lab. Miles uses his Venom Strike and his invisibility powers strategically. The fight is everyone vs. Kingpin's army — Tombstone, Doc Ock (a female version of Doc Ock in a lab coat, voiced by Kathryn Hahn), and finally Kingpin himself. Miles, alone, faces Kingpin in the collider's central chamber. He delivers a perfectly-aimed Venom Strike to Kingpin's face. Kingpin goes down. Miles inserts the USB drive into the collider's mainframe. The collider's power-cycle reverses. Peter B. Parker, Gwen, Peni, Noir, and Spider-Ham each get pulled back to their respective realities. The collider implodes. Earth-1610 is safe.

Goodbye. Miles is the only Spider-Man left in Earth-1610. He has fully accepted his identity. He swings across Brooklyn at sunset. His father Jeff — who has spent the entire film disapproving of vigilantes — finally has a quiet conversation with Miles on the front stoop. Jeff doesn't know Miles is Spider-Man, but he tells Miles he loves him no matter what. Miles, in his Spider-Man mask, hugs his dad. Cut to credits.

Coda. The film's after-credits sequence: Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac, in voice work), in his red-and-blue 2099 costume, in a futuristic laboratory in Nueva York 2099. Miguel is wearing a wrist-mounted dimensional-jump device. He activates it. He travels back to a 1967 Earth where he meets the original 1967 animated Spider-Man cartoon version of Peter Parker. The two of them have a brief argument over which one of them is the real Spider-Man — the Sony comedic pinpoint to the iconic Spider-Man-points-at-Spider-Man meme. The post-credits scene closes with a giggle at the absurdity of the multiverse. Cut to credits.