The energetic, kinetic art style of the first movie is back. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, like Into the Spider-Verse, is an animated movie drawn straight from the comics, in a variety of comic-book styles. This time, however, rather than starting off from the perspective of Miles Morales, the story begins with an alternate universe Spider-Woman, or Gwen Stacy, in a universe where Peter Parker is dead.

Of course it isn't long before Spider-heroes from other universes appear. And yes, while I think the overabundance of Spider-heroes is as corny in the Marvel universe as the over-abundance of speed-based heroes in its DC counterpart, I have got to admit it's really cool-looking in this movie.

In this one, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is struggling to find his place in a world where Peter Parker is dead, and Miles is the new Spider-Man. His connection to other Spider-heroes from parallel worlds -- including Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and an alternate Peter (Jake Johnson) -- have been cut off, and young Miles is trying to figure it out on his own.

It doesn't help that his parents are becoming suspicious, or that he's still wracked with guilt over his uncle's death. But then there's a battle with the villainous Spot (Jason Schwartzman), and Gwen comes to visit, and suddenly Miles is thrust into a nexus between worlds where Spider-heroes from many dimensions gather to fight crime and keep reality intact. (Although I have to admit I've always seen Spider-Man more as a loner, rather than part of an interdimensional superhero team like the Green Lantern Corps.)

Anyway, it turns out that reality is threatened simply by Miles' existence, since he -- as it turns out -- was never supposed to be bitten by that radioactive spider, and that cross-dimensional fluke cost his world's Peter Parker his life and denied another world a Spider-hero of its own.

As things spiral out of control, Spider-Man 2099, aka Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac) is striving to maintain canon and prevent worlds from imploding. Aiding him are literally dozens, possibly hundreds, of Spider-Men and -Women from across the multiverse -- including Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), Hobie Brown (Daniel Kaluuya), Ben Reilly (Andy Samburg) and Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni) -- but at the end of the day, he's opposed by one young man: our Miles.

If I have any complaint, it's that the movie spends too much time with Spider-Man/Miles fighting Spider-Men and -Women all over the place, in various comic book styles and flashy, seizure inducing imagery. Heroes fighting heroes because of a misunderstanding is an overused trope, and it goes on too long here. Even so, it's looks pretty cool.

Eventually you realize that there are far too many dangerous threads still hanging and less than 15 minutes left in the film. Oh my, I suddenly realized, this is ending with a cliffhanger.

And it did. Nuts, now I have to wait.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, like its predecessor, tells an excellent story in a flashy, fairly unique way. It is unlike anything else currently coming off the factory line from Marvel, DC or any of the other production companies. And, while this is not my favorite incarnation of the hero, nor is it my favorite movie about a Spider-Man incarnation, I love what they're doing with it. And I can't wait to see what's next.