Spider-Noir review – Nicolas Cage’s stylish take on the superhero as a 1940s detective is huge fun
All smoke, shady dames and black and white cinematography, Marvel’s latest Spidey offering is fast, witty and confident
As is increasingly, wearyingly, the case as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand/bloat/chase the dollar in an ever-more unseemly and less rewarding manner – delete according to taste – Prime Video’s new series, Spider-Noir, requires you to set aside some lore while retaining other bits. Thus I should point out that the arachno-inflected human being brought to you here is played by Nicolas Cage but is not the spider character that he played in 2018’s Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse, although he sounds a lot alike. That one was called Peter Parker, as is traditional. This one’s called Ben Reilly. Why you would still cast one of the most divisively idiosyncratic performers in modern cinematic history – who can no more be dissociated from any of his previous parts by the average human brain than the concept of sourness can be uncoupled from a lemon, sweetness from honey, or Nigel Farage’s face from that of a melting frog’s – is beyond me, but I guess … that’s Hollywood?
As the title suggests, Spider-Noir has been conceived as a homage to the hard-boiled films and fictions of the 1940s. The whole thing was filmed in black and white and digitally colourised thereafter, so that viewers can choose in which form they want to watch it. I look forward to online wars breaking out over this issue, upon which I shall remain Switzerland. Except to say that the decision to colourise a noir homage was a craven one in the first place – never give the people what they want! – and the decision to watch such a version is worse.
Anyway. The show is gloriously full of shadows and cigarette smoke, sassy secretaries and shady dames, as well as superheroes and supervillains. Reilly was the superhero – known as The Spider, apparently, rather than Spider-Man, possibly for legal-distinctive reasons – keeping New York safe from harm until five years ago, when he failed to save the woman he loved from death. He hung up his mask – a strikingly woolly affair, because we are in the Depression Era and Lycra is yet to be invented – and is now more Sam Spade than Spider, eking out a living as a PI.
When we first meet him, Reilly has been hired by an unseen client to track down a man called Addison. When he does, Addison turns out to be capable of turning himself into a human torch and setting fire to everything in his path – but is not impervious to the bullets unloaded into his chest by another gumshoe, also hired by an unseen client to find him. What was so important about this guy and why is this client so unseen?
Reilly’s metaphorical spidey-sense is alerted. Which is not to be confused with his actual spidey-sense, which tingles whenever violence is about to be done to his person, although generally just a second too late to deprive the audience of another fight scene. One character, Flint Marko (Jack Huston) – bodyguard to Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), the shadiest, damiest of shady dames – appears to turn into sand – yes, sand! A man made of sand, would you believe? – when riled. Are The Spider and Addison not the only men in New York with hidden abilities? When Flint disappears, Cat hires Reilly to find him, and so he is drawn further into – ahem – a web of intrigue and danger. (Which I’ve just realised makes The Spider more like the fly, but let’s just blow past that.)
At the centre of it sits a gangster, Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), who has taken over the city in the past five years. He has the police and various politicians in his pocket and the only recent cramp of his style has been someone’s attempt to burn down his mansion. But who? But who?
More clues, more characters, more hidden abilities and more plot twists are served up – and if none is brilliantly innovative, the whole is fast enough and fun enough to get away with it. Everything is shot with style and confidence, while the script contains just enough sharp dialogue and witty banter (even if it does occasionally veer into screwball comedy territory when it occurs between men and women) to keep it aligned with the templates of the past. And Cage fans, of course, will have Cage to keep them going too. Non-Cage fans (hi!) need not fear either. For us, he should always appear in shows as heavily stylised and as mannered as possible, so that what we cannot help but parse as dreadful affectation shows up less starkly and, at its best, begins to look credible. And he is ably assisted/his weaknesses disguised by great performances from Karen Rodriguez as a sassy secretary, Janet; by Lamorne Morris as Reilly’s tenacious newshound buddy Robbie Robertson; and by Gleeson as the scary villain – all the more so for reliance on terror rather than superstrength.
If it was a blond, Spider-Noir might not quite succeed in making a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. But it would certainly have him thinking about it.
Explore more on these topicsShareReuse this contentСхожі новини
Необхідно 1,5 млн грн на відновлення: РФ пошкодила корпуси Києво-Могилянської академії
China film about woman whose killing of husband framed as result of domestic violence banned
Katseye Tour Tickets Sold Out in 48 Hours, But There Are Still Ways to Score Seats Online
