Spider-Noir review: a pulpy joke taken too far

Part of what made the first two Spider-Verse features so much fun to watch was the way they cleverly incorporated many of the lesser-known Spider-people Sony can legally use in its projects. Normies (read: people who don’t read comics) came to love Hailee Steinfeld’s Spider-Gwen, John Mulaney’s Spider-Ham, and Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir. And Sony took the films’ success as a sign that it could re-create a similar kind of magic with other characters who exist in Spider-Man’s orbit, like Venom and Madame Web, with varying levels of success.
Amazon’s live-action Spider-Noir series is Sony’s latest attempt at cashing in on the Spider-Man name independent of Marvel. In addition to being a comedy with very loose ties to the Spider-Verse films, the show is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the hard-boiled crime dramas that dominated Hollywood’s Golden Age. Aesthetically, Spider-Noir is a charming delight — particularly when you watch it in black and white (there’s also a colorized version). But the series is so lacking in narrative substance that it feels like Sony has lost sight of what made its most successful Spider-Man projects shine.

Rather than bringing Cage back to portray a flesh-and-blood version of his monochromatic Spider-Verse hero, Spider-Noir centers Ben Reilly — a brooding vigilante from yet another universe who the citizens of New York City know best as “The Spider.” Though fighting crime with his superpowers once gave Reilly a sense of purpose, the tragic death of his girlfriend drives him to leave the hero life behind in favor of becoming a private investigator.

After five years of working with Reilly, his secretary Janet (Karen Rodriguez) knows about his uncanny ability to sense danger and his knack for snapping photos, but he’s also been slacking when it comes to bringing in new clients and hasn’t paid her in months. Janet is almost ready to quit when Reilly lands a seemingly ordinary case that brings him face-to-face with femme fatale / nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li ). It doesn’t surprise Reilly to learn that the situation involves local mob boss Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) and his gaggle of dim-witted goons. But Reilly is shocked when his investigation leads him to superpowered people like Flint Marko (Jack Huston).

Very little of Spider-Noir feels anything like Marvel’s 2009 Spider-Man: Noir comics series, and its commonalities with Cage’s Spider-Verse character are few and far between. That might work if the show had a unique story to tell or if it was fully committed to being a straight drama. But Reilly’s arc is marked by many classic Spider-Man beats — get ready to hear about great power and great responsibility again — that have already been adapted multiple times before. And Spider-Noir frequently leans into a cheesy kind of humor that keeps it from living up to its name.

Though Spider-Men from every universe tend to be wisecracking jokesters, there’s an intermittent cringiness to Cage’s outré performance here that highlights why this character (or at least a variant of him) works better as a cartoon character. From scene to scene, Cage plays Reilly as an aging quipster doing an iffy James Cagney impression, a smooth-talking Humphrey Bogart type, and a straight-up weirdo who lacks any sort of believable chemistry with romantic partners as they’re introduced. Cage’s Reilly is somewhat compelling when Spider-Noir calls for him to be a sullen, contemplative man pondering his place in the world. But those moments tend to be cut short as the show barrels through its too-predictable central story.

Cage’s Spider-Verse character worked because he brought an atonal energy to both films that complemented their focus on the multiverse. Things like Spider-Man Noir’s overwrought seriousness and inability to understand colors were funny because of the way they contrasted with the chaos and whimsy around him. But because Spider-Noir is so lacking in terms of emotional and thematic detail, Reilly comes across more like a messy pastiche of half-baked ideas as opposed to a fleshed-out character.

It’s a shame because the show is gorgeous and it’s clear that Cage is having fun with the role. But that’s not enough to make Spider-Noir a show that you need to see. Rather, the show feels like the result of Sony learning the wrong lessons from its previous wins. And it’s a reminder that we’re still a ways out from getting back to the good stuff.

Spider-Noir also stars Lamorne Morris, Abraham Popoola, Lukas Haas, Andrew Lewis Caldwell, and Jack Mikesell. All eight episodes premiere on MGM Plus on May 25th and on Amazon Prime beginning May 27th.