The Spirit

Chalk me up as a Frank Miller fanboy. Along with fellow visionary Alan Moore, he changed the world of comic books forever with his bleak, noir-heavy storytelling and striking art style into something that wasn't just for kids anymore. God bless him for that. Along with Robert Rodriguez, he brought his pulp masterpiece Sin City to the big screen and kicked the a$z of every person who saw it. But could he duplicate the same artistic success with somebody else's creation and without the help of a directing dynamo like Rodriguez? Not so much. But in spite of all the bile that has been spewed upon Miller's solo directorial debut "The Spirit", I had myself a good ol' time. And with the right attitude, you might as well. Just be prepared for a whole lotta cheese.

Now I have not read any of Will Eisner's comics so I simply cannot comment on how this fares as an adaptation. I suspect not so well. A lot of people who saw this went in seeing the amazing visual style of "Sin City" coupled with Miller's name and expected more of the same. Visually, "The Spirit" may be even better, but the tone.....well I can honestly say I haven't seen anything else quite like it. Between this and some of his recent comic work (oh yeah, "All-Star Batman and Robin", I'm looking at you!) I believe that Miller has gone little bit bonkers after so many years of writing mean and nasty comic books. This movie is practically a comedy. At times absurdly so. I'm talking Adam West as Batman comedic. For all the stark black-and-white imagery, classic crime story dialogue, and sultry vamps it's hard to take a film or character seriously when he's thrown out of a building by his girl, gets his coat caught on a statue and dangles with his pants around his ankles while a crowd mocks him (one kid simply states "He looks stupid!", while another bystander chimes "You will believe a man CAN'T fly!"). In the end, "The Spirit" is about camp as much as anything else. I laughed out loud several times. This movie is definitely being filed in the "so bad it's good" file. I just think that Miller's faux-serious tone here coupled with the darkness of his previous work just did not gel with the fans on this one.

Lots of good, though. Again, the visuals are stunning. This is one aspect that has always been a can't miss for Frank Miller. The silhouette image of white blood on black concrete, the partially-real/partially-animated hero jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the classical sexiness of the ladies, the reds, the greys; this one is head-to-toe eye candy. Speaking of which, I was shocked to find a PG-13 flick from a man who is loathe to ever draw a fully-clothed woman. Maybe Miller's a chauvinist or just a slave to his adolescent fantasies (the smart money's on door #2) but aside from a few genuine a$zkicking characters like Elektra and deadly little Miho, it seems like every woman he draws is A) as close to naked as he can get her if he's drawing a mainstream comic, B) naked if at all possible, C) in the story primarily for titillation, and D) ridiculously horny. The gallery here is sexy as all hell, but amount to a bunch of caricatures. But to be fair, every character in this film is a caricature, not just the "broads". This brings me to the best casting choice this side of Paz Vega as the blade-wielding looney-tune Plaster of Paris (yes, that is her name): Samuel L. Jackson as the cosplay-happy supervillain The Octopus. When it comes to playing comically over-the-top, this is the man to call first. In one scene he and his henchmistress are dressed as samurai. If I was in the theater, I would have shouted "SHO NUFF!" at the screen. Then maybe one dude would have laughed because he actually saw The Last Dragon. God, I'm a freakin' nerd.

The story....who cares. Some complete nonsense about Greek mythology, immortality, and The Spirit's long-lost girlfriend. The point is this: this movie is 100% bat$hi+, ridiculous, visually stimulating, and good for some WTF-style laughs. I'm talking tiny head attached to a foot hopping around WTF-style laughs. I mean a villain who works eggs into every conversation he has over the course of an hour and a half WTF-style laughs. If you take a second of this film seriously , you'll have wasted your time. This is just a guilty pleasure homage filled with sly references to comics and cinema past. Arguably better then the film is the special feature "Miller on Miller" where the master gives us a 15-minute lesson on comic history and the medium's significance along with a metric ton of insight into his life and career.

Truth be told, I don't know what the hell Frank Miller was thinking when he unleashed "The Spirit" on an unsuspecting world. This film is just bizarre and nonsensical to the hilt. There's a lot of fun to be had with it, but I am hardly surprised by the chilly reception it received. Only a certain kind of genre fanatic will get anything out of it, but if you're up for some cinematic weirdness that pays tribute to the days of pulp long past, then give this DVD a spin.

First off, let me make it clear this movie may not appeal to everyone.
It's the cinematic equivalent of Frank Miller's recent comic work: incredible visuals with ridiculous, over-the-top dialogue.
Likewise, if you try to take this film seriously then you may not gain much gratification.
However if you view The Spirit with an open mind as you would while watching the Adam West Batman show or reading Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All-Star Batman and Robin, then you're sure to have a much more enjoyable time with this irreverent pop culture parody.
At several points in this film you just have to laugh out loud at the absurdity.
Just don't go in expecting Sin City or The Dark Knight.
The Spirit is on the other end of the artistic spectrum, demented post-modern camp/kitsch exploitation.

Even though Miller updated The Spirit with his own visual trademarks and sense of humor, in many ways it's very faithful to Will Eisner's comic.
I must emphasize the term "comic" since that is exactly what Will Eisner's creation was, a comic book with a humorous, comedic core.
In any sense of the word, The Spirit is a "comic" film through and through.
You get the feeling as if Frank Miller wrote/illustrated a modern Spirit graphic novel and then adapted his work to film panel by panel.
Comic fans will also appreciate many of the subtle (and not so subtle) nods to comic book culture such as "the Elektra complex", which of course references Miller's own legendary run on Daredevil. (which was inspired by Will Eisner's original Sand Saref storyline from The Spirit)

In conclusion, The Spirit is a fun comic book film ideal for Frank Miller fans and comic book fans in general with an offbeat sense of humor.

This is SOOOO not like the strip itself in feel. Will Eisner's "The Spirit" was an original handling of the whole "Shadow"/"Batman"/"Dick Tracy" "creature of the night" crimefighter. The opening splash panels were always so elaborate and illustrative. The Spirit always showed a ton of compassion to his retrievable charges, like Bleak or Sand Serif, (Sand actually being an old childhood friend of his!) but the one antagonist he has that he doesn't show ANY compassion for, the Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson, doing his crazy coon routine again, is trying to become immortal by acquiring a serum that will grant him that power from Spirit's old childhood chum, Sand Serif, who has become Modesty Blaise, after a fashion.

The Spirit is Denny Colt, a rookie cop that is killed, but then brought back to life somehow to become the bane of the human vermin in his city. He works in concert with the chief of police, Dolan, and dates his daughter, Ellen. Dolan is not like the strip Dolan. Ellen is not like the strip Ellen. There's a new character that I never saw before, Morgenstern, who plays a Jimmy Olsen type role here. She's more or less just competent comedy relief.

The strip this movie is based on is as old as the hills....going back to the forties, and was originally issued as its own individual supplement as part of Sunday papers every week, until austerity programs got it canceled in that venue. Zip to the early seventies, and publisher James Warren, he of "Creepy", "Eerie" and "Famous Monsters of Filmland", falls in love with the strip and publishes "Spirit" magazine , a compendium of new stories drawn by Mike Ploog and written by Eisner. Actually, if you ask me, it took WAAAAAY too long for this property to be made into a live-action feature. I wonder what held it up.

This is not the first media version of The Spirit, either. Not long ago, (1987,) there was a TV movie done by the Fox network or someone adventurous, and THAT one missed the mark as well! At least they didn't have a version of Ebony in this new one. No, just the Octopus to perpetuuate an unfortunate ethnic stereotype.

Anyway....it could have been worse....there ARE some funny bits in here. The Octopus' cloned henchman are funny, as are some scenes with them and Scarlett Johannson. However, the feel of the old srip just isn't there, and whoever put Gabriel Macht in sneakers and a trench coat ought to be shot! And what is it with Frank Miller and near-monochromatic cinematography?? His D.O.P shoots too damned dark and drab for a lot of the movie to be enjoyed completely. A shame, since there was SOME potential here....