Spider-Noir “Step Into My Office”

My girlfriend and I opted to go for Spider-Noir as one of the shows we watch when we get together most weekends.  We were both curious. and why wouldn’t we be?  Nic Cage is playing Spider-Man in a noir world.  The series could be watched in black-and-white or color.  We decided to alternate on black-and-white and then color for the first two episodes to see which version we liked best, and then we were off.

Then Amazon canceled the series.  And it won, like, five Emmys.  Weird stuff happens.

The plot here, essentially, is a classic film noir plot:  Private Detective Ben Reilly, formerly the Spider, has been in mourning for his lost love Ruby died years ago, drowned when her car went into a lake or river or something, and despite his spider-powers, Ben was unable to pull her free.  Now, he’s just going through the motions, dead inside and unwilling to be the Spider again.

But someone needs to be the Spider.  The mobster Silvervane is up to no good, still.  Superhuman people are starting to appear, starting with a guy who can burst into flame and did a little arson in Silvermane’s house, and ending with, among others, a guy made of sand.  Said guy was Flint Marko, and he was played by Jack Huston, probably one of the my favorite castmembers from Boardwalk Empire.

You know, I never finished that series.  I really should one of these days.

Regardless, Ben is hired to look into nightclub singer Cat Hardy.  She might be cheating on her husband.  With the mayor.  That ain’t good.  There’s still some superhero daring-do, some violence, and Nic Cage doing a Humphrey Bogart impression.  All things being equal, I liked what I saw.

I mean that in the most literal way possible, too.  We were concerned the show would just be short in a regular manner and then converted to black-and-white, kinda like Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot.  But no, this show looks like it was shot for black-and-white.  The shadows, the impressions, they all look fantastic.

The noir stock characters are there too.  There’s a crusading newspaper reporter, Joe”Robbie” Robertson.  There’s another P.I. who will not take good advice and back off from blackmailing Silvermane.  There’s a long-suffering secretary Janet, who knows the business better than Ben seems to.  And there’s even a moment, something that happened in a lot of old Bogart movies, where the episode literally stops so Cat can sing and song and Ben can watch her do it.  Total “male gaze” moment.

So, really, this might be something that is right up my alley.

No wonder Amazon canceled it.