‘Spider-Noir’ Seeks to Tempt Young Marvel Viewers Into Classic Hollywood’s Web

Nicolas Cage, in a recent interview, explained that his entire motivation for playing the title role in the new Amazon Prime streaming series “Spider-Noir” is specifically so that he can give viewers the option of watching the show in black-and-white. This, he elaborated, will hopefully make contemporary audiences, and younger viewers especially, aware of the great wealth of classic cinema produced in monochrome.Bingeing a 2026 TV series based on a Marvel comics property seems like such a 21st-century thing to do, but seeing it in what is essentially sepia tone (like the opening of “The Wizard of Oz”) definitely gives you a feeling of time shifting. Even the many CGI sequences are handled so well that you never quite shake the idea that you’re watching an old movie.I screened the first episode in the so-called “Noir” version, but then, wanting to get a feel for the alternative, switched to full color for the second. I was amazed: the color is rich and vibrant in a highly stylized, exaggerated fashion, much more than even most fantasy and sci-fi shows today. It feels at once like an early three-strip Technicolor movie as well as a vintage comic book, which were always all in color for a dime.The result is that “Spider Noir” works both ways, and I recommend you switch between the two modes as you enjoy the rest of the series. The show is both things, classic film noir and a comic book, but its episodic narrative also recalls the movie serials that were popular up through the dawn of television. In fact, nearly all of the early comic book heroes — Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and even Superman in his live-action incarnation — first made it to the big screen in this medium.Still, “Spider Noir” is molto Marvel. This variation on everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood webhead was introduced in 2009 as “Spider-Man Noir,” in which Peter Parker exists in Great Depression-era New York, the time of hardboiled private dicks, tough-talking hoodlums, and femmes fatale sporting both gats and gams. The new show is part of the Spider-Man spin-off universe, produced by Sony rather than Disney, which includes underrated gems like the three “Venom” movies as well as misfires like “Morbius” and “Madame Web.”The show’s masterstroke is, quelle surprise, the casting of Nicolas Cage, who supplied the voice for the character in the animated “Into the Spider-Verse” (2018). Mr. Cage is that rare actor who is worth watching in virtually anything, not least because he makes a point to pick stories that make us ponder the nature of reality, usually in a fun way, as in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and “Dream Scenario,” to name just two of his recent cerebral efforts.As we’d expect from Mr. Cage, this is a decidedly different kind of super-anti-hero, inspired by both of the most iconic detectives of ‘40s fiction, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, both of whom were portrayed definitively by Humphrey Bogart. Like the former, he has a long-suffering, semi-comic secretary (Karen Rodriguez) and like the latter, he goes down these mean streets a decidedly shopworn, cynical, and battle-weary good guy.Nicolas Cage at the premiere of ‘Spider-Noir’ in May 2026. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images In giving us an older Spider-Man, he aligns the character more closely with the senior incarnation of Batman in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns.” It’s also a treat to watch Mr. Cage throwing bones to old movie buffs, as when he passes himself off as a wacky plumber in the spirit of Bogart incognito as a bespectacled bookworm in “The Big Sleep” and occasionally delivers a line reading like Jimmy Cagney or Edward G. Robinson.Whereas the comic book features a Roosevelt-era Peter Parker, along with Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson, the screen adaptation creates a whole new character, named after the iconic Spider-Man clone Ben Reilly. The major spider regulars who appear are Lamorne Morris as journalist Robbie Robertson and a pair of villains, Sandman — Marvel’s version, who is literally made of sand— and Tombstone.The visuals, the script, the acting, and the direction are all superb, and the underscoring music by Kris Bowers and Michael Dean Parsons is in the grand tradition of Max Steiner and Miklós Rózsa. Still, I wish they’d made the songs, and the vocals by Li Jun Li (as Cat Hardy) more authentic to the era. It’s not like everything has to sound strictly like 1933, but the rappy main title theme is a definitive minus. Mr. Cage and creator/showrunner Oren Uziel are doubtless sincere in their desire to steer younger viewers towards classic film, but they largely missed the chance to turn them onto classic jazz and pop.In either monochrome or multichrome, “Spider Noir,” along with “Daredevil: Born Again,” another Marvel series, is just about the most essential watch of the current season. Here’s hoping the show is successful enough to inspire Sony or Disney to go after another noir version of a major four-color hero, like “Batman: Gotham Noir” or, better still, Colman Domingo as “Luke Cage Noir,” sleuthing around Harlem in the 1930s. Never mind that I prefer the noir version to the standard Luke Cage, I would support that idea just for the soundtrack alone.

‘Spider-Noir’ Seeks to Tempt Young Marvel Viewers Into Classic Hollywood’s Web

More from the New York Sun

‘End of the Great China Gold Rush’

Wartime Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Declares That America Is No Longer Sleeping

Jerome Powell Takes JFK for Granted

More from the New York Sun

‘End of the Great China Gold Rush’

Wartime Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Declares That America Is No Longer Sleeping

Jerome Powell Takes JFK for Granted

‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent Scott Pelley Accuses Bari Weiss of ‘Murdering’ the Show: Report

Justice Department Says It Will ‘Abide by’ Court Order To Halt ‘Weaponization Fund’ Amid Legal Challenge

Silicon Valley Backs Spencer Pratt as L.A. Mayor’s Race Tightens in Final Hours

How Oman Lost Its Mojo as the Switzerland of the Mideast

Arsenal’s ‘Anti-Soccer’ Approach Produces a Very British Backlash