Spider Noir - review

Title a thappa padichitu Mallu series pola nu was thinking. Couldn't blame me for Malluwood is giving Hollywood a tough run for their genre jumping trend and churning blockbusters - be it our own home grown super hero Minnal Murali or our own Van helsing (helsingi rather) in Lokah and so on. But apparently Noir is much different in concept and theme than Nair which becamse evident the moment Nicholas cage popped on screen. And interestingly the series was shot in black and white. And considering Cage, probably it was a hat tip to his age!!! I've seen a fair bit of spidey's courtesy Junior, but never in my life i thought Cage would play one!!! He was old in National treasure series and that movie came two decades back!! May be due to the actor or may be by design, there is not much the usual swing and jump that one usually associates with Spidey movies. In fact, there are hardly couple of occasions where he even shoots web. The entire series is dialogue heavy and witty like the classic B&W era movies. Spidey is not even Peter Parker but Ben Reilley, one of the many versions of spidey across the multiverse. In fact, the fact that the character wears a mask saves tonnes of special effects and making charges where you can simply use a stunt actor to play out the thrill sequences. And the setup being in erstwhile depression era New York means, Spidey doesn't have to deal with too many sky scrappers as well. In fact, it all looks so made up and obviously looking like made up set that, there is a scene where the villain guy and Ben will be seen talking from the balcony of a penthouse. The sky outside of the balcony and the skyline looks so obviously a drawn up board that possibly the makers wanted to leave it like that just to rub it on that it was from an era where forget about computer graphics or even an analytical engine, Charles Babbage would've been having cabbage (couldn't resist!!)  as a school going kid!! To give credit where its due, the dialogues are quite witty and sharp. The guy who plays the role of sandman would've spent as much on hair gel as having special effects sand on his face i guess!!! Marana adi fight sequencesla kooda oru mudi kooda kalayala!!! The betrayal sequence felt really hurting for by that time, you've got accustomed to watching it as a Black and White movie and not a superhero comic to cinema version. It is quite engaging as well and not boring at all, considering very few stunts and far lesser VFX scenes. On the whole, it felt more real and closer to a normal person suddenly ending up with super powers, which is what the original comics is all about. Watching it on B&W is an additional plus. One word about the villain. He looks more like our carrot toupe than the original himself!!