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.”
We bear witness to a Mexican standoff in Finn’s nightclub and a little misdirection that sees Robbie pose as The Spider, and then learn that it was Ben who sprung Flint/Sandman (Jack Huston), Lonnie/Tombstone (Abraham Popoola), and Dirk/Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldwell) from the WWI prison camp where they were experimented on and given their powers. In a sequence that nods to Orson Welles’ “The Lady from Shanghai,” Cat enters a hall of mirrors — where she ultimately gets the best of Silvermane, shooting him dead.
According to Cage, “‘The Lady from Shanghai’ is very apparent. I also love ‘Enter the Dragon’ and the hall of mirrors sequence at the end, and that’s all borrowing from Welles.”
There’s also a thrilling set piece where Cage’s Spider squares off against both Sandman and Megawatt and is nearly zapped to death (a la “Return of the Jedi”) before hurling the baddie into an oncoming train. Cage, in his first TV acting foray, found it difficult at first to adjust to the medium’s rhythms and movements, as well as working with a bunch of different directors on a single project.
“What’s different about television, and I’m a student and want to learn things, is that the director of photography sets up the shot with the stand-in, and you don’t have the time to really rehearse it — they gotta get that shot — so as an actor, I’ve got to find out a way to get to that shot that makes sense for my character,” he explains. “In a movie, you bring the actors in and you’re with the DP and you all talk it through, and it’s not quite like that with television because of the time constraints. It was a bit of a learning curve. In the first episode, I was like, ‘What is going on?’ ‘What is this?!’ It’s a little more factory, and you have to adjust.”
Cage continues: “The other big difference, obviously, is that you get in step with a director and then two episodes later, you have a new director. So, you wonder, ‘Are we going to gel?’ ‘This is my rhythm, and what’s your rhythm?’ What they’ll do is they’ll bring in the subsequent director, he or she will watch for a couple of weeks and talk it through, and you get to know them. And I was blessed, because each of the directors had something different to offer, and there was this nice creative coalition going on.”
Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li) in “Spider-Noir.”
Courtesy of Prime Video
At the end, Ben does the selfless thing and walks away from the woman he’s enamored with (Cat), giving Sandman the antidote to cure him of his superpowers so he and Cat can live a happy life together. It’s a Bogie move that makes perfect sense to Cage.
“I think Ben Reilly knows it’s useless. Cat doesn’t love him, it’s as simple as that,” he offers. “Am I gonna be the guy who keeps pursuing someone that’s not interested? No. Is it being selfless or is it just being real and letting her go? He wanted to forget about it and to put it away because he feels he failed the love of his life. Here he is, this person with powers, and he couldn’t save his favorite person, Ruby, so what’s the use? He has great remorse. But he has a higher calling, and he’s owning it.”
“Spider-Noir” ends with Ben and his loyal secretary, Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), opening their own private eye firm together. So, will there be more mysterious cases for the duo (and Robbie) to solve in future seasons?
“I do not know,” says Cage. “But I would say that whether it happens or not, all of us achieved what we set out to do, and it works on its own. We’ll see what happens.”
