The multiverse Spideys are back in this web-slinging, head-spinning sequel, sadly missing the opportunity for an updated theme song: Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Maaan, Spider-Man… you get the idea.

Across the Spider-Verse is the latest in a thread of multiverse movies that stems from Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Lego Batman and struck Oscar gold with Everything Everywhere All at Once. En route, Sony used Into the Spider-Verse as a testing ground for Lord and Miller’s meta mayhem, before Marvel Studios co-opted the idea for Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And true to form, DC Studios has copied No Way Home’s premise for its impending The Flash.

The upshot (aside from Spider-Man films needing more titles) is that the Spider-Verse is almost a victim of its own success, setting in motion a series of films that make its once-shiny concept feel like worn spandex. But the sequel proves the idea still has legs, adding meat to the exoskeletons of its characters and taking them to some unexpected places. Where Doctor Strange squandered its psychedelic potential, this has more multiverse madness than you can absorb in one sitting.

This time the diverse web of spider-people includes an Indian Spider-Man (Karan Soni), a British Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) and a pregnant Spider-Woman (Issa Rae). They are rendered in a range of animation styles, from Lego to Leonardo da Vinci, reflecting the different worlds they inhabit. But even in this spider-bite survival group, Miles Moralis (Shameik Moore) remains an outsider, not conforming to the story of his parallel wall-crawlers.

A film about what always happens in Spider-Man, its deconstruction of the franchise helps justify the existence of a series that has already been told more times than the Moon landing. But the movie is better when focusing on the smaller-scale characters than when it becomes bogged down by its own mythology. Spider-Man tends to have more heart than other superhero sagas, and the moments between Miles, his parents and Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) have an emotional authenticity that lights up the free-wheeling runtime.

The movie stretches its threadbare plot, setting up the third chapter over two hours and 20 minutes; a duration one hopes would cover the entire story instead of leaving us hanging. A long fight between Spider-Men seems redundant after its brilliant execution in No Way Home, though it does have more Easter eggs than Poundland on Halloween.

The comedy that so often feels forced and awkward in superhero fare is smartly written and smoothly integrated, never derailing the movie’s swinging momentum. That energy is matched by the voice cast, most memorably Steinfeld, Ziggy Marley and Jason Schwartzman as The Spot – a “villain of the week” who develops the power to destroy entire dimensions while being genuinely weird and funny throughout. And tying it all together is the electrified comic book animation, whose ink-black flashbacks and futuristic fluorescence make the film well worth a spin.