SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of “Spider-Noir,” now streaming on Prime Video.
“Spider-Noir” is unlike any superhero saga we’ve ever experienced before.
A film noir/superhero hybrid shot in stunning black and white (but also available in color), “Spider-Noir” follows Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a grizzled private eye in Depression-era New York City who’s retired his crime-fighting alter ego The Spider following the death of his wife. Joined by journo-pal Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), Ben is thrust back into action to solve a labyrinthine case involving fetching nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Lee), Irish crime lord Finn Byrne/Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) and a squad of WWI veterans imbued with special powers. At the center of it all is Cage, one of the most unusual and unpredictable stars in Hollywood, chewing up the “Spider-Noir” scenery like bubble gum. As Cage recently told Variety, he was “doing this thing of channeling old actors and colliding it with Stan Lee’s masterpiece that is ‘Spider-Man’ to create a Roy Lichtenstein pop-art sensation of sorts.”
All eight episodes of the Oren Uziel-produced series dropped May 27 on Prime Video (and earlier on MGM+). Its finale, “The Man in the Mask,” is a cinema confection combining elements of “Star Wars,” “Spider-Man,” “The Lady from Shanghai” and even “Casablanca.”
