(trailer review) - Spider-Noir

As off-the-wall as a black-and-white character being dropped into a colourful comic-book world sounds, the first trailer for Spider-Noir, being off-the-wall, somehow makes it work perfectly—and I absolutely loved it.

It’s also Nicolas Cage being… well, Nicolas Cage. And from what people have been saying, this is him in the most “Nick Cage-iest” way possible. Somehow, it completely works for the tone they’re going for. If anything, this trailer feels even stronger than the first.

The trailer opens with Ben Reilly saying: “Every mystery forms a complex web, but pull the right strand, and it’s a straight line to the answer.”

Straight away, it sets that noir detective tone.

There’s an interesting visual during this too, with a crane hook ascending in a way that mirrors Spider-Man hanging upside down. Then we get flashes of cards shuffling, a man with electricity glowing through his face like veins, and Ben Reilly lying on his back looking completely defeated.

The trailer moves quickly between these strange, stylish moments. There’s a cityscape drenched in shadow, a possible villain sitting in anguish, someone holding fire in the palm of their hand, and a nightclub performance that instantly reminded me of the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Then the detective story kicks in properly.

A woman walks into Ben Reilly’s office asking for help finding a missing friend, and from there the trailer spirals into chaos. There’s a great slow-motion shot where Spider-Noir gets punched by what looks like a Sandman-style character before falling from a rooftop. But as he falls, something changes. We get flashes of him trying to save someone trapped in a sinking car underwater before he finally fires out a web and swings back into the fight.

Someone tells him: “You’ve been in a hole ever since Ruby died.”

That line alone tells you there’s a lot more pain behind this version of the character.

From there it’s pure madness in the best way possible—Spider-Noir taking out enemies, person engulfed in flames, cars being stopped with brute force, electricity igniting oil in the streets and some genuinely creepy shots of what look like failed experiments and mutated villains.

One shot in particular of a man with multiple eyes on one side of his face biting someone’s arm felt straight out of a horror film but also reminded me of the Spider-Man animated series which had Peter Parker turn unti a "Man-Spider".

Visually, this show looks fantastic too. The black-and-white noir aesthetic mixed with comic-book action gives it a completely different feel from most superhero projects out right now and harkens back to the likes of Sin City. And the swinging shots through the city genuinely look great.

The final joke lands perfectly as well. After getting beaten up repeatedly in various fights, the woman asks Ben what happened to his face and he casually replies: “I walked into a door.”

Classic noir detective energy.

And then the trailer ends by revealing you can watch it in two different ways, including “True-Hue” full colour mode, which honestly feels like such a cool touch for a project like this.

Everything about this looks stylish, weird, dramatic and surprisingly fresh.