Animation Feature Oscar: Spider Vs. Heron

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Credit: Sony Animation

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for 2018. Its sequel Across the Spider-Verse is a front-runner for the same award this year. The race is between Spider-Verse and Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece The Boy and the Heron. Miyazaki has won in this category for Spirited Away (2001) and is regarded as a master in the field, so he may be primed for a second Golden Guy. 

It's a tough choice. I watched Spider-Verse on Netflix and was totally stunned. There was so much happening in every frame, it was overwhelming. I did not see the 2018 film, so at first the plot was kinda confusing. But gradually we can figure out that we're in an alternate universe where Spider-Man is not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales, the son of an African-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. In this world, there is also a spider-powered version of Gwen Stacy--or is she from yet another world? Evidently, there are an infinite number of universes, each with their own Spider-Man or Woman. For reasons not immediately clear, Miles is taken to a Spider- World where EVERYBODY has Spider powers. The plot is not as important as the action which is jam-packed and the multiple Spider heroes are fun. There's even a Spider-kitty and a Spider-dinosaur.