The Spirit Review
The Spirit
Written and Directed by: Frank Miller
Starring: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson, Louis Lombardi, Eric Balfour
How did Frank Miller manage to go from fanboy favourite to motion picture pariah in the span of three years? As one of the biggest comic book writer/artists out there today, his work on Sin City and graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns helped build respect for the entire medium. Unfortunately, after experiencing the mess that is The Spirit, it’s pretty obvious that all of the man’s talent lies primarily on the page and not the big screen.
After Miller co-directed Sin City with Robert Rodriguez, he was given a chance to direct the adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit all on his own. Miller chose to take a familiar route: shoot the entire thing in front of a green screen, and then digitally transform it to black and white with a few accent colours for style. It certainly looks a lot like Sin City, but since I don’t know much about The Spirit, I can’t say whether or not it stays true to the original art style. Regardless, differences from the source material are the least of this film’s problems.
Let me just say that I went in with an open mind; I had heard all the negative buzz, but still saw some potential for fun. I was hoping for some cool visuals and a campy film noir feel. Sadly, The Spirit is not stylish, goofy fun — it is dull, confusing, and just falls flat at almost every turn.
The movie opens with The Spirit getting a tip about his arch-enemy The Octopus, who is trying to intercept a treasure chest of some sort in the Mud Flats outside of Central City. This leads to a massive fight between the two, at which point we learn that both The Spirit and The Octopus have strange regenerative abilities that make them essentially invincible. The Octopus seems to know the secret of these powers while The Spirit is in the dark, but he suspects that the treasure chest has something to do with it. It turns out that the chest contains the Blood of Heracles (yes, that’s right, the son of Zeus) which could make either one of them immortal. To complicate things, the one who is in possession of the treasure chest is Sand Seref, The Spirit’s childhood flame who has since become a jewel thief.
You might think there is more to the story, but that’s really all there is — which is kind of why this movie bored me to tears. The rivalry between The Spirit and The Octopus is the entire focus of the film (along with The Spirit’s many superficial love interests). The problem is that The Octopus is never shown doing anything particularly evil, and The Spirit is never shown fighting crime in any other way. Since neither of them can really hurt each other, there’s no reason to care, and next to zero suspense.
There also isn’t much action in this movie; much like Frank Miller’s comics, the movie is very talky, with plenty of extended soliloquies and dialogue exchanges that try hard to be funny and/or tough but fail miserably. We all know that Frank Miller loves melodrama and I expected plenty of it, but none of the actors seem able to work with the hammy lines they are given. Scarlett Johansson, in particular, turns in an absolutely dreadful performance, so much so that I felt embarrassed for her. Samuel L. Jackson is probably the one guy who could have made this work, and although he does deliver a couple of funny moments, he also struggles.
There are moments of campiness that kind of work, such as The Octopus’ endless series of goofy cloned henchmen (all played by Louis Lombardi). They wear shirts with silly names that are exactly like something out of the ’60s Batman series. Also, The Octopus’ inexplicable obsession with eggs is kinda funny, if not downright bizarre. Then there are those wacky sight gags that really just left me speechless.
I did like the look of the movie, at least for the first 5 or 10 minutes, but it becomes a little dull by the end of the film. It also suffers from the same problem as Sin City, which is that it appears overly digital and lacks the sharp shadows of a true black and white film. It’s very obvious from the get go that the whole thing was shot in front of a green screen since there are almost no backgrounds, just a lot of smoke and snow attempting to fill in the empty space. It’s also hard to get a handle on the time period of the movie too; as much as Miller tries for a ’40s or ’50s film noir feel, there are cell phones and other forms of technology throughout (including a pretty obvious shill for Nokia partway through).
I have to admit, I debated giving this film zero stars, which reflects how much enjoyment I actually got from it. However, in the end I am giving it a half star for at least being bold and somewhat unpredictable (there are places that this movie goes that I don’t think anyone could have expected). I am sure there will be at least a few people who view it as an avant-garde masterpiece. Unfortunately, I have to concur the vast majority on this one, and I fear that with The Spirit, Frank Miller may have just killed his filmmaking career in one fell swoop. — Sean
SCORE: 
Recommended If You Like: Sin City, Dick Tracy, The Shadow
Comments (28)
The look of the film is what bothers me the most since The Spirit comics don’t look anything like that. The film should have been called Frank Miller’s, Will Eisner’s The Spirit.
Posted by swarez on January 3rd, 2009i want to hear frank miller’s reaction to the fan and critic’s reactions…does anyone know if he has said anything publicly?
Posted by Bob The Slob on January 3rd, 2009I enjoyed it merly as campy fun
Posted by Drew on January 3rd, 2009And yes I did find it fun, especially with lines like “I’m gonna kill you all kinds of dead!” and “Lets Die!” spread throughout the film.
Posted by Drew on January 3rd, 2009It certainly looks visually interesting. I think I’ll still give it a try & probably enjoy the camp feel of it like Drew did.
Posted by Section 31 on January 3rd, 2009I tried to even enjoy it on that level Drew. Condemned and to an extent Doomsday I could enjoy as campy fun. The Spirit fails on all levels and could only enjoy on a very shallow level. There is this one shot of Scarlett leaning over showing her magnificent cleavage. Pure Awesomeness. I fucking hated this movie. 0/0
Posted by Primal on January 3rd, 2009Yeah, this movie sucked pretty hard, although the line “Smells dental in here… dental and Nazi” was pretty hilarious.
Posted by Liz on January 3rd, 2009It’s so funny. I remember at Comic-con when they were hyping this movie up like it was going to be the greatest comic book adaptation ever. Too bad.
Posted by Neil M on January 3rd, 2009Now the co-director deal on Sin City, was Miller actually telling actors what to do and telling the camera man where to shoot? Or was the credit solely based on that Rodriguez used his frames and composition?
Posted by swarez on January 3rd, 2009could you recommend this to someone who prefered adam west over christian bale?
Posted by blackmothra on January 3rd, 2009I also did enjoy the action that there was if only because it was so ridiculous, I thought that last action scene was awesome (after all it did have the let’s die line, you could put that on a t-shirt). I liked the giant guns they were using, I laughed every time they pulled one out. But there is no question that Miller is stealing the style not only from his own Sin City but from all things in the Graphic Novel medium, that shot when the Octopus blows up is taken right out of Watchmen. Regardless, like I said before, I did enjoy it as campy fun. And like I said before I loved the dialogue, and thats the main reason I liked the camp. I think The Spirit is destined to become a cult classic.
Posted by Drew on January 3rd, 2009And yes, Johansson was annoying as hell. But those chesticals made up for any damage done by her. (Sorry if I offended any women,
)
Posted by Drew on January 3rd, 2009blackmothra: I love the ’60s Batman series, and this doesn’t even come close in terms of fun. I think the problem is that it wants to be campy AND dark, whereas the old Batman show was a lot more colourful and light-hearted. I just didn’t find it very funny. But hey, I am seeing a few people here and there echoing Drew’s sentiments so it’s hard to say.
Posted by Sean on January 3rd, 2009I’ve been struggling with the decision on whether to watch the Spirit, knowing full well that I’ll probably hate it. After reading this review and many like it, I’d probably just walk out in the middle which is something I’ve never done before.
Posted by Nuno on January 4th, 2009I’ve walked out on two movies in my life…and this was the second. STUPID. FAKE. CONFUSING. BORrrrING! I lasted maybe thirty minutes and it was a unanimous decision to leave amongst my peeps.
The first movie I walked out on was Resident Evil: Apocalypse (I had free radio promo tickets) and I only lasted ten minutes through the raping of my favorite VG franchise…the fact that the only available seats were four rows from the screen didn’t help. I treated everyone to The Spirit losing over 20 bux on that shit and I still didn’t want to get my “monies worth”.
Worst Hollywood movie since The Happening; but at least that movie was entertaining (albeit for the wrong reasons). Can’t wait for the podcast on this piece of shit!
Posted by Ryan M. on January 4th, 2009I’ve never found Frank Miller’s comics to be too talky, but I could see why he would want to fill up the empty space in this film with dialogue and exposition. I haven’t seen it but it looks pretty confusing. It looks the retro thing kinda falls flat; I wasn’t so taken with Sin City to begin with. I still want to see this despite your review, though.
Posted by Joel on January 5th, 2009I don’t see what’s wrong with lots of dialogue and exposition, no I didn’t retain much of that stuff after leaving the theater, other than the ridiculous but awesome catchphrases, but I felt that it was o.k because I found that the dialogue wasn’t that important. The things I enjoyed were all the silly action scenes, the octopus pulling out 2 giant guns with 4 barrels on each and saying “I’m the Octopus, i’ve got 8 of everything.” The Spirit beating the Octopus in the water while ridiculous punching sound effects play. And remember, I’m not saying this was a masterpiece, and i’m not saying this was the best film of the year, I just really enjoyed it.
Posted by Drew on January 5th, 2009“I don’t see what’s wrong with lots of dialogue and exposition”
Generally, when a film has lots of expository dialogue then that means it failed at the basic idea that film is a VISUAL storytelling medium. The story should be told through pictures.
“I found that the dialogue wasn’t that important.”
Which bored me to tears.
Posted by Ryan M. on January 5th, 2009Yeah we were all pretty unimpressed in our review of it for the Futile Podcast.
http://www.granateseed.com/futilepodcast
Posted by Ian on January 6th, 2009“Generally, when a film has lots of expository dialogue then that means it failed at the basic idea that film is a VISUAL storytelling medium. The story should be told through pictures.”
But I would argue that it does do that and that it does it very well, take the scene in the nazi room, and the flashbacks that follow it, I thought those were awesome visuals.
Posted by Drew on January 6th, 2009What a wonderful movie…for an idiot!
This flick was THE WORST failure of the the new milenium.
What the fuck is Frank Miller thinking by putting his own style on a tribute film to Will Eisner. Especialy when Robert Rodriguez gave Miller the courtesy of adapting his Sin City comics so accurately.
If I was zombie Will Eisner I would punch Miller for fucking up my comic with a movie that was seen by thousands.
Miller is a dooshbag! Next time he wants to fuck up a classic with his wonderful filmaking skills I hope he warns us.
Will it be a cult classic and cherrished by a select few of “smarter then thou” hipster art fags? Who knows?
Posted by the Spirit on February 3rd, 2009Oh and the Nazi scene?! What the fuck was that?
Miller is clearly a nazi. And not even a real nazi with convictions and tattoos. But a superficial Nazi that just likes Nazi imagery.
Good god.
Oh and yeah Scarlet Johanson showing cleavidge. Whoopty Fuckin Doo.
Good acting performances are harder to come by then a picture of tities.
Posted by the Spirit on February 3rd, 2009What a pile of tripe. Here’s my take: http://www.screenjabber.com/the-spirit
Posted by ste7en on March 4th, 2009I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Posted by Gee on April 7th, 2009Im a big fan of these kind of movies.
People have slated it,well they’d rather watch some formulaic crap,that Hollywood normally churns out.
I for one liked it 8.5/10.
Frank Miller “Keep up the good work”
I thought the spirit was hysterical. That’s just plain damn wierd.
Posted by dyttuuu on April 13th, 2009People expect too much nowadays from movies.
Not all movies have to be life altering events.
This movie was really entertaining, and, for the life of me, I just can’t understand why so many people have hated it with such intensity.
Everyone needs to take a chill pill and just erase expectations.
No expectations, no disappointments.
Maybe I just view movies as how the Spirit views women. All of them have something to love about them.
Posted by Jason on May 17th, 2009Dont you people realize its SUPPOSED to be corny, campy, and fun!? Seriousness is blatantly ignored because seriousness has no PLACE in a movie like this. Its made off of a COMIC. Comics in and of themselves are melodramatic and have the cornyest lines EVER. As far as confusing goes… thats crazy. Its one of the easiest movies to grasp that ive ever seen. But it still creates a stand-up storyline. All in all, i loved it. The only thing was the Sin City black and white doesnt match the graphic novel, but it DOES lend itsself well to the overall film.
Posted by sdwise on June 7th, 2009Only thing i liked was watching paz vega in hardly anything, the rest was shithouse
Posted by mike on June 9th, 2009Leave a Reply