Nicolas Cage excels in the ambitious but disjointed Spider-Noir

In his mixed review of Batman Returns, Roger Ebert declared that costumed crime-fighters and films like Double Indemnity could never work intertwined. "No matter how hard you try,” Ebert explained, “Superheroes and film noir don’t go together; the very essence of noir is that there are no more heroes.” Showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot clearly didn't get that memo before embarking on the new TV show Spider-Noir. This entire show is a noir pastiche right down to explicit homages to The Lady in Shanghai and Gilda. It also stars a guy in a Spider-Man suit fighting crime.

Ebert was right to an extent. Superheroes and noir storytelling make for odd bedfellows. Spider-Noir (based on the comics character co-created by David Hine and Fabrice Sapolsky) is a janky creation often struggling to cohesively fuse its disparate creative influences. Sometimes, the proceedings can’t shake off feeling like a fan-film. However, there are distinctive charms here you couldn’t just get from rewatching The Big Sleep.

Taking place in early 1930s New York, with both the Great Depression and prohibition taking their toll on everyone, private investigator Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) is looking out for number one. This super-powered guy used to fight crime under the costumed alias The Spider. However, after he failed to save his wife's life, he hung up that mantle and caring about anyone. Now he just takes whatever paying gigs and booze he can get his hands on. Who cares if crime boss Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) is tearing the city apart?

However, the emergence of super-powered individuals like Flint Marko (Jack Huston) and the alluring spell of nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li) turn Reilly’s world upside down. With the aid of reporter Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris) and another investigator, Janet (Karen Rodriguez), Reilly reluctantly begins putting the fedora and mask on again once more. If this was a CBS procedural from 2006, these events would kickstart Reilly investigating a new crime each week. He’d be like Columbo or Charlie from Poker Face, except he shoots webs and crawls up walls.

Unfortunately, Uziel, Lightfoot, and the other writers frustratingly adhere to the modern streaming approach of treating eight-episode-long seasons as lengthy movies. Other comic book shows (like Watchmen or WandaVision) cleverly differentiated one episode from another, like focusing on just one character or unique sitcom aesthetics per outing. Here, episodes blur together and Reilly’s central character arc gets padded out. When will the madness of not letting television function like television end?

Across these eight 40-45-minute-long episodes, though, there are plenty of showcases for Nicolas Cage’s immense acting talents. I presume the Spider-Noir team convinced him to headline a TV show for the first time simply by assuring him he could do Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson impressions at different intervals throughout the season. Those delightful digressions epitomize how Spider-Noir constantly lets Nicolas Cage take the sort of quintessentially big acting swings only he can do. A sixth episode bit focused on his jagged and bizarre body movements, he even flings himself to a wall briefly) especially captures this Wild at Heart leading man’s gift for unforgettable physicality.

Spider-Noir works spotlighting Cage echoing old-school movie stars. Unexpectedly, the more conventional superhero fight scenes are also entertaining highlights. A fourth episode skirmish between the titular lead and electricity-spewing Dirk Leydon/Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldell), for instance, features creative action beats specific to their respective superpowers (like Megawatt making use of a phone booth). Directors like Nzingha Stewart realize these showdowns with solidly cohesive camerawork and editing, especially compared to the choppy filmmaking in, say, Iron Fist.

How does Spider-Noir balance super-powered beings fighting in New York’s streets with an aesthetic harkening back to Raymond Chandler? Messily! But, to the show’s credit, Uziel, Lightfoot, and company also imbue Spider-Noir with other pre-1960 cultural influences like EC Comics and vintage monster movies. There are tons of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein anytime Flint Marko/Sandman (Jack Huston) laments about how he’s “a monster.” These eight episodes are a smorgasbord of vintage genre story influences, which inevitably leaves the proceedings feeling scattered.

It does, however, ensure Spider-Noir consistently keeps your attention and, unlike other comic book TV shows, demonstrates a willingness to get weird. While the Inhumans program stripped the titular leads of all their heightened qualities, this show has no problem featuring beasties chomping on Ben Reilly’s arm or making sure the titular lead dons his costume long before the final episode rolls around. That confidence is admirable, ditto the willingness to mimic staples of silent cinema like an iris transition. Even at its messiest, Spider-Noir has creative chutzpah.

It doesn’t hurt that the supporting cast channels Cage’s enthusiasm for this vintage material. Li Jun Li, though underserved by some messy writing, absorbingly embodies the classic femme fatale archetype. Meanwhile, Lamorne Morris is terrific basically headlining his own show depicting Robbie Robertson navigating New York for stories that could get him his Daily Bugle job back. Arguably the show's breakout star is Karen Rodriguez, who compellingly goes toe-to-toe with Reilly at the drop of a hat. She's got moxie evoking classic leading ladies while still injecting Janet with plenty of fresh idiosyncrasies.

Unfortunately, despite getting some talented actors to play them, Spider-Noir’s villains are its weakest part. Not even a legend like Brendan Gleeson can make Silvermane anything more than just Temu Wilson Fisk. There’s shockingly little specificity to this character, a far cry from classic noir baddies played by Charles Laughton or Lionel Barrymore, who were just dripping with personality. Silvermane, meanwhile, just delivers interchangeable monologues about violence driving the world while inhabiting equally indistinguishable lavish locales. Even after eight lengthy episodes, Silvermane remains a generic, shrug-worthy mobster baddie.

Flint Marko is also underwhelming as a complicated foe. Part of that comes from Huston’s miscalculated performance. Unlike Cage, he can’t sell externalized anguish well. It doesn’t help that the writing wringing sad monologues out of Sandman always comes across as unintentionally humorous. Thankfully, Andrew Lewis Caldwell is a delight as Megawatt, an aspiring stage actor turned villain. He's having such a pronounced ball in the role and radiates energy whenever he’s on-screen. Unfortunately, his entertaining maximalism only highlights how other Spider-Noir foes, like Silvermane, are a slog.

The erratically successful villain epitomizes Spider-Noir as a show engaging in constant, sometimes frustrating, tug-of-war. It’s a noir homage also paying tribute to a barrage of other pre-1960 genre storytelling influences. The scripts yearn to get audiences invested in its characters yet struggle to flesh out many of these players beyond classic nori archetypes. Then there’s the innate problem with having a show where Not Phillip Marlowe also engages in big superhero movie-friendly fight scenes. Like Ebert said, noirs and superhero fare are odd bedfellows.

Still, all those colliding creative instincts combined with unapologetically goofy (complimentary) comic book material does yield some fleetingly entertaining fruit. Having Nicolas Cage around anchoring the proceedings certainly doesn’t hurt. While other superhero TV shows attempt to tone down the weirdness of their source material (hello Arrow and Iron Fist!), Cage embraces the material’s innate absurdity with gusto. That’s not enough to fully erase either Spider-Noir’s disjointed nature or its frustrating pacing. This leading man’s commitment, though, ensures Spider-Noir, even in its weakest moments, always goes down swinging.