Spider-Noir Review: Nicolas Cage's PI-Superhero Hybrid Show Is Just Okay

I was pleasantly surprised when it was announced — after "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" became an even bigger hit than its predecessor — that the always-suspicious P.I. Spidey that Nicolas Cage voiced in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" would be getting his own live-action series from MGM+ and Prime Video. Mind you, "Spider-Noir" isn't a direct spin-off of that animated character, but an adaptation of the 2008 Marvel comic, "Spider-Man Noir" (with notable differences). Still, from every alternate version of the webslinger we saw in the "Spider-Verse" films, the hard-boiled detective-superhero seemed like the least safe choice to have his own story fleshed out on the small screen.

That's why it's somewhat disappointing that "Spider-Noir" is as formulaic and standard as many of the iterations we've seen thus far — save for some deliciously amusing and trademark Nicolas Cage peculiarities. Don't get me wrong, Oren Uziel's show is far from a bad one. Yet the best thing I could say about it is that it's ambitiously mediocre. Despite being shot in "authentic black-and-white" (which should've been the only version to watch it in if the creators were ballsy), there's no particularly outstanding quality here that the series excels in.

The homage to classic film noir is there (both in cinematography and tone), but it gets old rather quickly because style in itself can't save a lackluster plot in which all-too-familiar stereotypes do all-too-predictable things. The problem is that the entire vision of "Spider-Noir" is to emulate pastiche without adding anything unconventionally daring. Sure, it's different from the regular Spidey outings we've seen on the big screen, but not different enough to be memorable in a way that "Wonder Man" was earlier this year, for instance.

The show starts off rather promising: Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a burned-out gumshoe in 1930s New York, tells us in a voiceover that he lost his big love, Ruby (Amanda Schull), and with her his drive to be the city's vigilante known as The Spider. That was five years ago, and ever since, Reilly has buried his alter ego as deep as he could to be a regular PI, doing the occasional private eye gig for jealous wives and husbands. But since he plans on paying his secretary, Janet (Karen Rodriguez) — who's better at this job than he is — one of these days, he's aware he needs a bigger fish to fry to keep the lights on.

So when two guys turn up on the streets with superpowers (one can create flames while the other is the Sandman of this universe) linked to the local Irish mob boss, Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson given little to work with), he knows it's an opportunity he can't miss; one that will require him to dig up his goggles, trench coat, and the powers he purposefully stopped using to unravel how they're connected to each other. All of this, alongside the city's scheming mayor and a gorgeous singer (Li Jun Li) that Reilly falls head over heels the minute he hears her angelic voice.

Thus, we see little of The Spider in the first half of the series and a lot of Cage doing his best Phillip Marlowe impression, but the crime plot turns so tedious so quickly that I found it hard to pay it attention and actually care. Reilly uttering lines like "People lie, only money tells the truth" does help with evoking the kind of gritty milieu I love to sink my teeth into, but they become increasingly rare and watered down by exhausted superhero tropes we've seen a million times before.

The moments that work (and I wish there were more of them) are when Cage is allowed to unleash his bonkers acting chops and embrace the mad silliness he's become a champion of, especially in the last 15 years. When he quips and acts like a total loony, the show becomes a hoot: the mixture of the hard-boiled tone with unabashed eccentricity is what "Spider-Noir" should've been about in the first place. And, for some brief moments of flair, the series does capture that neat blend of atmosphere and humor well, but never long enough to be consistently amusing. And when it's not — when the stale writing relies too much on unexciting clichés with dull dialogue that would put any Gen Z-er to sleep — the episodes become a drag to get through even with their relatively breezy 40-minute(ish) runtime.

I could forgive the uninspired crime plot if the characters involved were complex, engrossing, carefully drawn human beings with distinguished personalities and compelling emotions, but "Spider-Noir" doesn't have any of those, unfortunately. They're all vague stereotypes played by overqualified actors who are doing their best to make them seem richer, but they can't perform miracles. Brendan Gleeson almost looks bored portraying a villain he'd normally have a ball playing — which goes for virtually every supporting player, with the exception of Karen Rodriguez as the witty Janet and Lamorne Morris' Robbie Robertson as Reilly's journalist friend.

Ultimately, "Spider-Noir" lacks a soul and a much-needed passion despite competently imitating the corrupt, stark, and smoky milieu it aims for. On the surface, the show seems like a decent homage to noir, even if it's inevitably artificial and gimmicky ... but it just doesn't feel like one. What HBO's "The Penguin" managed to do – deliver a quasi-independent drama in a well-known comic book universe — Oren Uziel's show cannot, no matter how hard it tries. But what nobody can take away from it is that it finally gives Nicolas Cage the kind of lead superhero role (eccentric, weird, and aptly quaint) he's meant for. If there's any hallmark here, it's his committed (if slightly restrained) performance that could've been much better with a bolder and less derivative script altogether.

Season 1 of "Spider-Noir" premieres on MGM+ on May 25, and Prime Video on May 27.