Spider-verse reviewed

Perhaps not worth spending too much time on this, but here goes:

*  yes, the animation is continuously impressive, and very clever in concept and execution.  This is the main reason for an adult to see the movie.

*  The story is OK:  I do get the feeling, though, that American critics really go a bit overboard for the father-son reconciliation themes that seem to be a speciality of Phil Lord, who wrote the (also somewhat overrated) Lego Movie.  Rottentomatoes give this 97% though?   A bit extreme.

*  I think the very silly additions (the anime Spider girl, and Spider-ham) were a bit funny, but I think the movie would have been better tonally without them.

*  The worst aspect, by far, was the ridiculous character design of Kingpin; especially when his family was portrayed in the same realistic human fashion as all other characters (Spider-ham and anime girl excepted.)   His wife and son were shown driving in a car which he would have had trouble getting one buttock into.  I really do not understand this decision - it broke any sense of semi-realism in every scene in which he appeared.

* Some of the climatic fight animation was too cluttered for its own good.

*  This post sounds crankier than intended - I don't regret seeing it at all, as I do get quite a kick out of gorgeous, innovative looking animation.  (Unfortunately, the novelty does wear off - Pixar style semi-realism was, for a while, a big motivation to see anything they put out.   That's no longer the case.)     There was also plenty of genuinely good humour in a movie that, like all Spiderman movies really, are good-natured at heart.   So, I don't want to discourage anyone who might be interested from seeing it - it's just that I like to think about how I would improve movies (or TV series.)  And I really did dislike the Kingpin design.