A kindred soul to both Sam Raimi’s big-screen Spider-Man trilogy and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s animated Spider-Verse gems, Spider-Noir captures the spirit of Marvel’s friendly neighborhood web-slinger while reimagining him in distinctly hardboiled fashion.
Uninterested in tying itself in knots trying to connect to a larger comic-book mythology, this Prime Video series is a fleet and funny multiverse saga energized by a superb Nicolas Cage as a wisecracking and anguished Humphrey Bogart-esque 1930s gumshoe with extraordinary arachnid abilities. Stylish, amusing, and action-packed, it’s a stand-alone tale of spectacular proportions.
Spider-Noir (May 27) is being released in separate color and black-and-white versions, but given that the eight-episode season has been crafted for maximum chiaroscuro boldness—with blooming light streaming through slatted blinds, enormous silhouettes cast against alley walls, and tense moments visualized with split screens and canted angles—the latter is unquestionably the only way to go.
Created by Oren Uziel (with Lord and Miller executive-producing), it channels its detective-story ancestors with a self-conscious wink that oozes playful admiration. So too does Cage’s turn as Ben Reilly, a private investigator cut from a James Cagney cloth (deliberately, as the character admits he’s inspired by the screen legend), whose cool cockiness, profound despair, quippy sarcasm, and reluctant heroism make him a new spin on an old archetype.
Reilly is a struggling dick who can barely pay his loyal secretary Janet (Karen Rodriguez), scraping by via jobs that require him to spy on men’s unfaithful wives, as he’s hired to do by a suspicious client. This leads Ben to Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), a singer at the Alcove Lounge run by Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), the city’s reigning gangster. Ben’s sleuthing reveals that Cat has been meeting with Mayor Morris (Michael Kostroff), who’s up for re-election, which makes him think he’s being set up by forces intent on taking down the politician.
As it turns out, his hunch is right and he’s soon up to his neck in trouble involving Silvermane and his second in command Winston (Lucas Haas), who’s on the hunt for the fiend who tried to murder his boss by burning down his mansion.
Ben is also wrapped up in that mystery, courtesy of another job that led him to Addison (Jack Mikesell), a two-bit criminal who’s more than meets the eye. That’s true of Ben as well, since his alter ego is The Spider, a wall-crawling do-gooder in a dark trench coat, fedora, and mask (decorated with big round goggles) who’s been gifted with Peter Parker-like powers.
Ben protected NYC as the Spider until he failed to save the love of his life, whose death is the albatross around his neck. Now content to let others deal with Silvermane and his ilk, he’s retreated into a life of two-bit normalcy, much to the chagrin of his best friend Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), a journalist whose career at The Daily Bugle—predicated on his access to the Spider—ran aground when Ben hung up his costume five years ago.
It’s not long before Ben is canceling his self-imposed retirement and hitting the streets as the Spider, and Spider-Noir gives him plenty to do, ensnaring him in a web of deceit, betrayal, and conspiratorial villainy that puts him in bed with Silvermane and pits him against Flint Marko (Jack Huston), the kingpin’s favored muscle.
Marked bills, pint-sized pickpockets, stealthy photographs, burly henchmen, and Depression-wracked hard luck cases are all part of this crime-fiction stew, as are femme fatales. The most notable of those, it’s immediately clear, is Cat, whose loyalty to Silvermane is as questionable as her feelings for Ben, who recognizes her as a key part of this puzzle and, additionally, as an alluring temptress, no matter that she may have eyes for another.
Spider-Noir looks great in monochrome and has a cynical bite that renders it a winning pantomime, and in Cage, it has a lead capable of infusing Ben with genuine guilt and despondency while retaining a sharp wit and noble heart. Cage treats the character seriously but simultaneously seizes opportunities to go over-the-top, whether he’s trying to execute his Spider duties despite being drunk as a skunk, or he’s overcome by arachnid impulses that manifest themselves in weird limb-contorting ways.
Tonally, his performance is hilariously spot-on, and the same can be said about those from the rest of the cast, with Gleeson doing a delightful cheery-menacing routine, Huston exuding grim, furious longing, and Rodriguez and Morris embodying their sidekicks with confident drollness—epitomized by the latter’s late, great Cage impersonation.
Spider-Noir eventually introduces a collection of individuals who are up to the challenge of squaring off against the Spider, and Uziel strikes a comfortable balance between fatalistic intrigue and superpowered combat. The series is snappy and humorous, and its remixed origin story for its protagonist—which dates back to WWI and features a deceased loved one who tells Ben that “with great power comes great responsibility”—is smartly conceived and executed. Its DNA also boasts trace elements of classic Universal monster movies (thanks to mad scientists and deformed mutants), contributing to the material’s lively genre-bending.
In “true-hue full color,” Spider-Verse’s formal affectations come off as clunkier and phonier, such that it’s surprising Prime Video provided viewers with the substandard option. Nonetheless, it’s easily avoided, and with its authentic black-and-white iteration, the show melds cartoonishness and suspense to excellent effect, right up to a finale in which Ben must choose between apathy and action, self-destruction and self-sacrifice.
Through it all, Cage’s megawatt brashness carries the day, with the Oscar-winner clearly having a grand time playing a hybrid of multiple American icons with the expressionistic flair—all wild gesticulations, bug-eyed expressions, and loose-cannon energy—that is his trademark.
The polar opposite of Disney+’s just-released The Punisher: One Last Kill, Spider-Noir has the sort of high-flying fizziness that defined Raimi’s live-action blockbusters and Lord and Miller’s acclaimed animated hits, even as it carves out its own eccentric identity. It’s as impressive as any recent comic-book endeavor, and proof that the multiverse—a concept largely shunned by audiences—still has some rejuvenating potential, at least in the right creative hands.
