{"id":695535,"date":"2026-05-26T19:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695535\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T19:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:49:14","slug":"spider-noir-review-a-pulpy-joke-taken-too-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695535\/","title":{"rendered":"Spider-Noir review: a pulpy joke taken too far"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t read comics) came to love Hailee Steinfeld\u2019s Spider-Gwen, John Mulaney\u2019s Spider-Ham, and Nicolas Cage\u2019s Spider-Man Noir. And Sony took the films\u2019 success as a sign that it could re-create a similar kind of magic with other characters who exist in Spider-Man\u2019s orbit, like Venom<\/a> and Madame Web<\/a>, with varying levels of success.
Amazon\u2019s live-action Spider-Noir series<\/a> is Sony\u2019s 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\u2019s Golden Age. Aesthetically, Spider-Noir is a charming delight \u2014 particularly when you watch it in black and white (there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Rather than bringing Cage back to portray a flesh-and-blood version of his monochromatic Spider-Verse hero, Spider-Noir centers Ben Reilly \u2014 a brooding vigilante from yet another universe who the citizens of New York City know best as \u201cThe Spider.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s also been slacking when it comes to bringing in new clients and hasn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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).<\/p>\n

Very little of Spider-Noir feels anything like Marvel\u2019s 2009 Spider-Man: Noir comics series, and its commonalities with Cage\u2019s 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\u2019s arc is marked by many classic Spider-Man beats \u2014 get ready to hear about great power and great responsibility again \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Though Spider-Men from every universe tend to be wisecracking jokesters, there\u2019s an intermittent cringiness to Cage\u2019s outr\u00e9 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\u2019re introduced. Cage\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Cage\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame because the show is gorgeous and it\u2019s clear that Cage is having fun with the role. But that\u2019s 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\u2019s a reminder that we\u2019re still a ways out from getting back to the good stuff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part of what made the first two Spider-Verse features so much fun to watch was the way they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[971,49,48,75,3078,337,64,123020,4055],"class_list":["post-695535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-amazon","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-marvel","tag-movies","tag-tech","tag-tv-show-reviews","tag-tv-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}