Nicolas Cage takes us to that explosive episode

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of “Spider-Noir,” now streaming on Prime Video.

“Spider-Noir” is unlike any superhero saga we’ve ever experienced before.

A film noir/superhero hybrid shot in stunning black and white (but also available in color), “Spider-Noir” follows Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a grizzled private detective in Depression-era New York City who has retired his crime-fighting alter ego The Spider after the death of his wife. Together with journalist Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), Ben is called back into action to solve a labyrinthine case involving nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Lee), Irish crime lord Finn Byrne/Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) and a team of WWI veterans with special powers. At the center of it all is Cage, one of the most unusual and unpredictable stars in Hollywood, who is eating up the ‘Spider-Noir’ landscape like bubble gum. As Cage recently said Varietyhe did “channeling old actors and clashing them with Stan Lee’s masterpiece ‘Spider-Man’ to create a kind of Roy Lichtenstein pop art sensation.”

All eight episodes of the Oren Uziel-produced series debuted on Prime Video (and previously on MGM+) on May 27. The finale, “The Man in the Mask,” is a cinematic confection that combines elements of “Star Wars,” “Spider-Man,” “The Lady from Shanghai” and even “Casablanca.”

We witness a Mexican standoff at Finn’s nightclub and a minor deception involving Robbie posing as The Spider, then learn that it was Ben who brought Flint/Sandman (Jack Huston), Lonnie/Tombstone (Abraham Popoola), and Dirk/Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldwell) out of the World War I prison camp, where they were experimented on and given powers. In a sequence that nods to Orson Welles’ “The Lady from Shanghai,” Cat enters a hall of mirrors — where she ultimately gets the best of Silvermane and shoots him dead.

According to Cage, “The Lady from Shanghai” is very clear. I also love ‘Enter the Dragon’ and the hall of mirrors sequence at the end, and that’s all borrowed from Welles.”

There’s also a thrilling set piece in which Cage’s Spider takes on both Sandman and Megawatt and is nearly zapped to death (a la “Return of the Jedi”) before hurling the villain into an oncoming train. Cage, in his first TV acting foray, initially found it difficult to adapt to the rhythms and movements of the medium, and to work with a number of different directors on one project.

“What’s different about television, and I’m a student and I want to learn things, is that the director of photography puts the shot together with the stand-in, and you don’t have time to actually rehearse it — they have to get that shot — so as an actor I have to find a way to get to that shot that makes sense for my character,” he explains. “In a movie you bring in the actors and you sit with the DP and you talk about it all, and that’s not the case in television because of the time constraints. It was a bit of a learning curve. In the first episode I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘What is this?!’ It’s a little more factory-like, and you have to adapt.”

Cage continues, “Obviously the other big difference is that you fall in line with a director and then two episodes later you have a new director. So you wonder, ‘Are we going to gel?’ “This is my rhythm, and what is your rhythm?” What they’ll do is bring in the next director, he or she will watch for a few weeks and talk it through, and you get to know them. And I was blessed, because each of the directors had something different to offer, and there was a nice creative coalition going on.

At the end, Ben does the selfless thing and runs away from the woman he is in love with (Cat), giving Sandman the antidote to cure him of his superpowers so that he and Cat can live a happy life together. It’s a Bogie move that makes perfect sense for Cage.

“I think Ben Reilly knows it’s useless. Cat doesn’t love him, it’s that simple,” he offers. “Am I the guy who keeps chasing someone who isn’t interested? No. Is it selfless or is it just being real and letting her go? He wanted to forget it and put it away because he feels like he let the love of his life down. Here he is, this person with powers, and he couldn’t save his favorite person, Ruby, so what’s the point? He is deeply sorry. But he has a higher calling, and he owns it.”

“Spider-Noir” ends with Ben and his loyal secretary, Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), opening their own private detective agency together. So will there be more mysterious cases for the duo (and Robbie) to solve in the coming seasons?

“I don’t know,” Cage says. “But I would say that whether it happens or not, we all achieved what we set out to do, and it works on its own. We’ll see what happens.”