Spider-Noir Is a Gorgeous Mess

I have wanted a live-action Spider-Man Noir project since the exact moment Nicolas Cage first opened his mouth as the character in Into the Spider-Verse back in 2018. That performance was so specific, so gloriously committed, that it felt less like a voice cameo and more like an audition for something much bigger. Eight years later, that something bigger finally arrived. Spider-Noir premiered on MGM+ on May 25, 2026, and on Amazon Prime Video two days later, and after sitting with the full eight-episode first season, I have thoughts. A lot of them. And they are, appropriately for a noir story, complicated.

The Setup

Spider-Noir drops us into an alternate-universe Depression-era New York City, where Ben Reilly, played by Cage in his first true leading television role, has long since retired from his web-slinging side gig as The Spider. Five years before the series begins, his fiancée died in a tragic accident, and Ben disappeared into what one review accurately called a nihilistic shame hole, working instead as a fledgling private investigator alongside his best friend, journalist Robbie Robertson, played by Lamorne Morris. When Ben’s past comes knocking in the form of a case that turns out to be far more dangerous than a simple missing persons job, he is forced to pull the mask back on.

That premise, importantly, is not adapted from Into the Spider-Verse at all. This is a direct adaptation of the 2009 Spider-Man Noir comic book miniseries, executive produced by Spider-Verse architects Phil Lord and Christopher Miller alongside developer Oren Uziel and showrunner Steve Lightfoot. The shift from a felled parental figure, the traditional Uncle Ben framework, to the loss of a fiancée as Ben’s tragic origin is a genuinely smart adjustment for the genre, giving the noir detective story its own distinct emotional wound rather than simply recycling Spider-Man’s most familiar beat.

What Works

Let’s start with the obvious: Nicolas Cage is exactly as unhinged and exactly as committed as you are hoping he will be. This is the role he has spent his entire eccentric career preparing for, and the show knows it, giving him room to be simultaneously world-weary and completely feral depending on the scene. If you came to Spider-Noir specifically for peak Cage strangeness, wrapped in a fedora and a trench coat, you will not be disappointed. Several critics singled this performance out as the show’s clearest justification for existing, and I genuinely agree. There are moments across these eight episodes that are, to borrow a phrase from one review, an absolute hoot.

The visual presentation is also a genuine achievement. The series streams in two distinct formats: an Authentic Black & White mode and a True-Hue Full Color mode, letting viewers choose exactly how they want to experience the noir aesthetic. Watching in black and white specifically transforms the show into something that feels like it was actually filmed in the 1930s, and the production’s commitment to that period detail, from the costuming to the set design to the moody, shadow-heavy cinematography, is consistently the strongest thing about the series. Several reviewers praised the show’s eye-catching cinematography as one of its most reliable pleasures even when the story itself stumbled, and having now watched it myself, that assessment feels exactly right.

The supporting cast also deserves real credit. Lamorne Morris and Karen Rodriguez, playing Robbie Robertson and Janet the secretary respectively, provide some of the show’s most purely enjoyable material, giving Ben, and the audience, moments to actually breathe between the noir gloom and the superhero spectacle. Their easy chemistry offers exactly the kind of human warmth this genre needs to keep from collapsing entirely into pastiche, and for my money, their scenes together are consistently among the best in the season.

Where It Stumbles

Here is where I have to be honest as a fan rather than just a hype machine: the story itself is the weakest part of Spider-Noir, and it is a genuinely significant problem for an eight-episode season. Multiple critics landed on the same conclusion I did watching it myself, that this is a show with tremendous style wrapped around a plot that frequently does not earn its runtime. The Hollywood Reporter called it an inconsistent disappointment, noting you have to wade through a lot of nondescript storytelling to get to the moments that actually land. Variety was blunter still, arguing the show plays it far too safe and is all style and very little substance underneath the gorgeous cinematography.

I don’t think it’s quite that dire, but I understand exactly where that criticism comes from. Too much of the season leans on convenient coincidences to move the plot forward rather than earning its twists organically, and there are stretches, particularly in the middle episodes, where the pacing genuinely sags. The visual effects are also inconsistent. Some sequences look genuinely cinematic, while others, particularly involving green screen work, look noticeably cheap in a way that pulls you right out of the otherwise meticulously constructed period atmosphere.

The Verdict

Spider-Noir is a show defined by a fascinating tension: a genuinely committed, gorgeous, tonally ambitious noir aesthetic wrapped around a plot that too often plays it safer than its own presentation deserves. As a longtime fan who has waited years to see this specific corner of the Spider-Man mythos brought to life, I walked away from the season satisfied but not fully won over. The character work is there. Cage is doing exactly what we all hoped he would do. The Robbie and Janet dynamic is a genuine highlight. But the story underneath all of that atmosphere needed another pass to match the ambition of everything surrounding it.

The door has been deliberately left open for a second season, and I am cautiously optimistic about what a sharper, more confident sophomore outing could look like now that the show has fully established its world, its cast, and its central performance. Spider-Noir is not the masterpiece some of us were hoping for after that Into the Spider-Verse cameo eight years ago. But it is a genuinely fun, gorgeously shot, wonderfully strange piece of superhero television, and for a character this specific and this weird, that might honestly be enough.

Season Rating: 6.5/10

Spider-Noir Season 1 is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video and MGM+, in both Authentic Black & White and True-Hue Full Color.

What did you think of Spider-Noir? Are you watching in black and white or color? Drop your thoughts in the comments.