The series "Spider-Noir" starring Nicolas Cage has been released on Amazon Prime Video. This is one of the pages of the superhero's multiverse - the action takes place during the Great Depression, the 1930s and 40s, with private detectives, gangsters, jazz, femme fatales, and undiluted bourbon. Film critic Irina Karpova watched all eight episodes of "Noir" and believes that Marvel characters and their superpowers played the role of an axe in preparing a brilliant homage to the American noir genre, and the result will appeal to fans of both universes - both Marvel and adaptations by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios. In Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep" (1946), private detective Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart, introduced himself to his client's daughter as Doghouse Riley. The main character of "Spider-Noir" is named Ben Reilly, not Peter Parker, although according to canon, Reilly and Parker are different people, and in the comic series where Spider-Man appears during the Great Depression, it is Peter Parker who acts. Whatever the true artistic and financial reasons for using the name Reilly in the series, the desire of showrunner Oren Uziel and his team to create an homage to American noir, the black-and-white cinematic universe of Bogart and Bacall, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Lorre, is obvious and unconditional. As Uziel himself says in an interview, they wanted to make a "classic Bogart film where Bogart turns out to be Spider-Man." And they succeeded. "Spider-Noir" exists in two versions, color and black-and-white, and viewers of the streaming service have the opportunity to choose their level of immersion in the world of a cool "dark" detective. Cinematographers Darran Tiernan and Peter Demming worked magic - the last time we saw a black-and-white image of a TV, or rather, streaming product, was in Steven Zaillian's "Ripley." In an interview with IndieWire, Tiernan admitted that he "had to go back 25 years and feel like a film school student again, where you only have three lighting devices at your disposal, and they are all tungsten." But tungsten turned out to be the right choice - it was decided to work with old equipment and to a lesser extent modern LED lamps, and moreover - to come up with their own lighting solution for each of the main characters. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios. "With great power comes great responsibility," says Spider, aka Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), explaining to the audience his retirement from business - the Spider mask is securely walled up, and the hero mourns over a glass of whiskey for his deceased beloved, blaming himself and his superpowers for her death. Until the mask is removed from the wall, it will take... about one episode. While Spider mourns and remains inactive, a confrontation of evil forces unfolds in New York - mobster Silvermaine (Brendan Gleeson) and the mayor (Michael Costroff) are at war. One wants to be re-elected for another term, the other wants the illicit alcohol trade to go smoothly (although he later admits that he is interested in the process of the struggle itself). When Silvermaine is not philosophizing, he indulges in the sin of micromanagement - he participates in torture to extract the necessary information, does not allow the singer of his club, Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li from "The Sinner"), to make any free choices - from her dress to her repertoire - trusts no one, and in the third episode, he hires Ben Reilly to find a traitor in his ranks. There have been several assassination attempts on Silvermaine, and someone from his circle has tipped off the police about the time and place of a planned alcohol shipment. Where are the superheroes, you ask? Reilly is looking for an arsonist who has the power of spontaneous combustion, and after starting to track Cat Hardy (and then blackmailing her with photos with the mayor of New York), he is forced to confront her lover Flint (Jack Huston) - Silvermaine's henchman and, by coincidence, the Sandman, although here the name Cement Man would be more fitting. Soon, the giant-powered Gravedigger (Abraham Popoola) and the electricity-absorbing, shock-inducing Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldwell) will join them. Unlike Spider's abilities, the abilities of other heroes destroy their bodies and health, threatening a swift death. Everyone calls each other, spies, threatens, and pursues, as befits a classic noir. And if you think that "Spider-Noir" has too many characters and is somewhat confusing - be patient for a little while: as soon as all the characters with superpowers appear on screen, a very convincing origin story for their supernatural powers will gradually unfold before you in the given circumstances, and the intricate noir will move onto well-oiled "Marvel" rails. It is worth noting here that many adaptations of hard-boiled detective stories suffer from this very thing - cases pile up and confuse viewers, all these unfaithful wives, rival detectives, who has disappeared, who is being sought, who called, who left a secret note, etc. "The Big Sleep," which Uziel and Cage directly and repeatedly quote, is an example of such cinema: one of the most popular mini-reviews on Letterboxd reads: "A great film for those who like to write things down on paper so as not to lose the thread of what is happening." Photo: Amazon MGM Studios. Strangely enough, the superhero theme with its clear plot templates has benefited the series. Reilly, for example, is not a lone hero; his resourceful, voluptuous, and witty secretary Janet (Karen Rodriguez) and freelance reporter Robbie (Lamorne Morris) are always ready to help him - thanks to the actors, these essentially stock characters give the series the warm charm of a sitcom. As a result, "Spider-Noir" is a noir-light, somewhat diet and adapted for the streaming format. In Chandler's works, behind the search for missing persons and the blackmail of unfaithful wives, there was real decay and trauma, alcoholism and loneliness - and the author's and hero's incredible, absurd humor as the only shield against evil. This is also present in "Spider-Noir," but in homeopathic doses. Uziel joined the project because he had already collaborated with the duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creators of the Oscar-winning animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," where Spider-Noir first appeared on screen. Lord and Miller offered Uziel the job on the project, knowing he was a fan of the genre; Nicolas Cage also voiced Spider-Noir in the animated film. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios. In the person of Cage, who has rediscovered himself in various cinematic experiments, from Panos Cosmatos' "Mandy" (2018) to Osgood Perkins' "The Eternal Daughter" (2024), "Spider-Noir" has acquired the necessary unit of truth for a successful work of art. "An ordinary unusual person," Spider introduces himself at the beginning of the first episode, "like all of us," he adds. Is this not the perfect definition for the multiverse of Nicolas Cage himself, which includes David Lynch's "Wild at Heart," Spike Jonze's "Adaptation," Jerry Bruckheimer's action film "National Treasure," unplayed roles of Elvis and Superman, and his invented acting method of "new shamanism" - and this is only a tenth of his filmography. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios. Cage's cinematic universe had a 13-year dry spell, right up until "Mandy," when he starred in various low-quality productions to pay off debts he incurred after the 2008 economic crisis. Noir genre heroes are most often reluctant heroes, finding themselves facing others' problems and trials, but deciding not to turn away. Nick Cage's black-and-white face, anxious and displeased, as if he is still forced to act for money, is ideal for embodying reluctant heroism.