Spider-Noir Review: Finally, Spider-Man Is Gross and Weird Again

One of the best things about Sam Raimi's seminal Tobey Maguire-starring Spider-Man trilogy is that he made being Spider-Man seem really gross. In the iconic transformation sequence, Raimi takes us inside Peter Parker's body so we can watch as his cells remake themselves, cartoon spiders crawling around. Raimi also famously gave Peter organic webbing, a biological side effect of his spider bite that allows him to shoot webs out of holes in his wrists. When he first discovers his powers, sticky webs shoot out inelegantly from under his sleeves. The versions of the character played by Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland would not have this side effect; it was briefly joked about when the three met in Spider-Man: No Way Home. But in Raimi's Spider-Man, the kid from Queens truly seemed to become a spider. There have been a borderline exhausting amount of Spider-Man adaptations in the years since, none of which have quite as openly embraced the body horror elements that became such a hallmark of Raimi's films. MGM+ and Prime Video's Spider-Noir marks the first time since Raimi was at the helm that a version of Spider-Man has gotten to be truly weird, and often disgusting, on screen. It's one of the many details that make the series such a daring, entertaining, and wholly unique watch.

Many of us were first introduced to a decidedly not disgusting Spider-Man Noir in 2018, when he appeared in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Voiced by Nicolas Cage doing his best James Cagney, he was portrayed as a Nazi-fighting monochromatic webslinger from the 1930s. ("Is he in black and white?" asked Shameik Moore's Miles Morales after first laying eyes on the guy.) Spider-Noir isn't a direct continuation of when we last saw Noir; most importantly, he is now three-dimensional, and his name is Ben Reilly, not Peter Parker. Played again by Cage, the hard-boiled, down on his luck Reilly, who once swung around Depression-era New York in a black mask and fedora, moonlights as a vigilante known only as The Spider. After tragically losing the only woman he ever loved, he's since gotten out of the superhero game and devoted himself full time to private investigation. And then an intriguing new case comes across his desk, one that involves an Irish mafioso (played by Brendan Gleeson), a lounge singer femme fatale (played by Li Jun Li), and a growing collection of people with mysterious powers whose villainous alter egos will be familiar to the Spider-Man diehards. Reilly finds the case too interesting to pass up, allowing it to slowly lure him out of superhero retirement, even as his already fractured sense of purpose continues to fade.

If that all sounds to you like a bunch of clichés rolled into a TV show, then Spider-Noir is doing its job. The series, created by Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot, knows it's dealing in clichés — that's the point, and very much part of its charm. Spider-Noir has a deep fondness for those clichés, and spends much of its eight-episode first season playfully messing around with the tropes of the superhero and noir genres. Take the fact that the series is available to watch in both "authentic black-and-white" or "true-hue" technicolor. I decided to watch much of it in black-and-white, compelled by the dramatic shadowy lighting style synonymous with film noir, but frequently switched over to the true-hue format to see how things looked in all that vibrant color. Authentic black and white evokes the feeling of an Old Hollywood detective movie, while true-hue brings to mind a highly saturated comic strip. Interestingly, the true-hue format looks slightly more unnatural than the black and white, which is a cool gimmick for a show with a protagonist who can never quite fit in. The series' energy changes entirely depending on how it's colored. Whichever way you choose, you'll be treated to a series that leans in rather than shies away from familiar motifs. At no point is this show going for realism, nor should it: This is, after all, a show starring Nicolas Cage as an aging P.I. who swings from buildings to fight crime.

8.8

Spider-Noir

at Prime Video

Like

• Nicolas Cage is at his Nicolas Cage best
• The dual formats are both worth checking out
• It feels genuinely gutsy

Dislike

• The script can't always shake its modern superhero tendencies
• Brendan Gleeson and Jack Huston are wasted
• What exactly is going on with Andrew Lewis Caldwell?

Speaking of Cage, it should be noted that Spider-Noir is his television debut. As more veteran A-list movie stars turn to the small screen, Cage has been one of the most notable holdouts. Cage told Esquire that the choice to make the show available to watch in two formats contributed heavily to his interest in the project, while executive producer Chris Miller said Cage was cast because of his ability to "come at a character in a way that no one else would think of."

That's where the grossness comes in: Cage's Reilly not only has the Raimi-originated organic webbing (the series delights in several close-ups of the holes in his wrists) but frequently contorts his body in strange, grotesque ways. His bones crack. He sweats. He bleeds unglamorously. A flashback to how he got his powers evokes a type of body horror that wouldn't be out of place in The Fly. In Spider-Noir, Reilly's spider powers seem almost involuntary, as if he's more spider than human. Watching him navigate the world is a bit like watching an alien try to blend in with people. Cage, who based his performance on everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Bugs Bunny, makes the character feel like someone who has literally never existed before. There's also a period-appropriate scrappiness to his vigilantism, and while Spider-Man is historically a young man's hero, it's just fun to watch an older guy swing around the city and rattle off the quips that every iteration of the character is known for. Bolstered by this strange and dynamic and frequently uncanny lead performance from Cage, Spider-Noir comes alive. Often, you're hitting play on the next episode just to see what he does next.

It helps that just about everything around him is fascinating too. Among the cast, Lamorne Morris and Li Jun Li are particular standouts. It's always a treat to watch the incredibly funny Morris, who plays Reilly's friend and indefatiguable journalist Robbie Robertson, get into scrapes. And as Cat Hardy, the siren who lures Reilly into Spider-Noir's criminal underworld, Li never gives anything away. Both are capable of going toe to toe with Cage, and both characters genuinely seem to care for Reilly despite all that off-putting oddness. (Late in the series, Morris even gets to do a pitch-perfect impression of Cage as Reilly.) Also excellent is Karen Rodriguez as Janet, Reilly's long-suffering secretary, while Abraham Popoola, as war veteran Lonnie Lincoln, is quietly devastating as a man in over his head as his own life-threatening powers develop.

Spider-Noir likely gets to have as much fun as it does because it exists within Sony's Spider-Man Universe (you know, the same universe that gave us Madame Web) rather than Disney's more rigid Marvel universe. It's not beholden to the MCU's obsession with continuity or trying to serve a larger franchise, which makes for a much bolder show than we'd probably get if Spider-Noir were streaming on Disney+. Bolstered by cinematic camerawork (all those Dutch angles!) and thoughtful costume design, it's clear how much thought was put into every detail of this show. It makes it even easier to forgive Spider-Noir for its faults. This is still a superhero show, meaning that the script often verges into over-explaining. And Gleeson and Jack Huston are both great actors, but nothing they're doing here really works. Meanwhile, I absolutely could not deal with Andrew Lewis Caldwell's grating performance as the villain who comes to be known as Megawatt — even his fellow castmates appear to find what he's doing annoying. But, ultimately: Who cares? Isn't it just exciting to watch a genuinely gutsy show with a genuinely gutsy lead actor? By the end of its eight episodes, Spider-Noir does what it set out to do: prove that a superhero adaptation can still take risks.

Premieres: Premieres on MGM+ on Monday, May 25; all eight episodes drop on Prime Video on Wednesday, May 27
Who's in it: Nicolas Cage, Li Jun Li, Lamorne Morris, Brendan Gleeson, Jack Huston, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Lukas Haas, Andrew Lewis Caldwell
Who's behind it: Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot (showrunners)
For fans of: Old Hollywood detective films, Nicolas Cage
Episodes watched: 8 of 8