Reviews thread

[I Am The Knight]

Ebert is a bastard for badmouthing Blade Runner when it came out. There, I said it.

 

[theMan-Bat]

Another positive review from THE KANSAS CITY STAR:

By JASON HECK

Writer-director Frank Miller had a huge role in moving comics from geek-lit to high art with his seminal graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. His feature debut doesn’t prove such a cinematic watershed, but the style dazzles, evoking everything wonderful and terrible from film noir and combining it with a likable hero and wonderfully pulpy premise.
Denny Colt (boyishly charming Gabriel Macht) is a rookie cop gunned down in the line of duty. Through mysterious circumstances he doesn’t understand, he’s resurrected. He shrugs off blows that would lay low the mightiest palooka, and machetes and bullets merely irritate him and slow him down.
He dons a mask and strikes a deal with Police Commissioner Dolan (gruff and perfect Dan Lauria) to go where Dolan’s officers cannot, to wage a new kind of war on the criminals of Central City, a filth-streaked urban hellhole.
Every hero needs a nemesis, and the Spirit has a humdinger in the form of the Octopus. As inhabited by Samuel L. Jackson, he is a former city coroner looking for the secret of immortality, prone to violent outbursts and Cheshire Cat smiles, and assisted by Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), one of several femmes fatale shoehorned into the plot.
Miller has seen two of his works, “Sin City” and “300,” adapted into hugely successful films. Their directors, Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder, established a certain visual style in comic book films, and Miller doesn’t deviate from it in any great measure.
Central City, towering gray monoliths wreathed in snow, isn’t too far from Basin City of “Sin City.” It’s a city where the police are overmatched and people hide behind curtains rather than aid a passerby calling for help. Miller’s joy at pairing his astonishing visual sense with a worthy budget is evident in many of his compositions, which are stark and often iconic.
The same attention is on display in every scene. But given the Spirit’s Sunday-comics origins and the pulp-turgid nature of the plot, it’s welcome.
The dark, hopeless scenery is fortunately leavened with some sharp dialogue, with the Spirit and his various female foils cracking wise in small exchanges that wouldn’t be out of place in a Howard Hawks screwball comedy. Miller does tend to keep the reins a bit too slack on Jackson, however, and allows him to indulge in his unfortunate tendency to scream his dialogue.
But “The Spirit” is terrific entertainment. It’s a better and a more complete film than “Sin City” or “300.” Having a comic book genius create a comic book movie is a very, very good idea indeed.

http://www.kansascity.com/710/story/948747.html

 

[Lighthouse]

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39573

The Spirit: FAQ
(By Alexandra DuPont)
____

Q. What's the upshot?

Boy, those other writers weren't kidding: "The Spirit" might be the worst movie I've seen since -- what?-- "Turistas"? And if I start thinking too hard about the talent involved (or the former talent involved, or the dead talent involved) versus what made it to the cineplex, "The Spirit" might even elbow its way up to be the worst movie I've seen since "The Phantom Menace."

It's one of those painfully, jaw-droppingly, call-your-lawyer bad movie experiences -- the sort of flick where pretty much every scene is a complete misfire, and not in that so-bad-it's-funny way. The timing's all off. The actors look confused and embarrassed. And if you care at all about the source material, the movie feels like punishment, or the final act of revenge in some long-simmering Miller/Eisner feud you never new existed.

As AICN readers know, writer/director Frank Miller is adapting comics master Will Eisner's classic newspaper-strip character for the big screen. (Here's a nice writeup that brings you up to speed on the character's history and importance; here's the Wikipedia entry.) Miller got the gig on the strength of co-directing "Sin City" with Robert Rodriguez, and also on the strength of his back catalog as a comics writer/artist.

But without Rodriguez, Miller's lost -- and as a storyteller, he's like ten or 15 years past his prime.

And so, in his first solo outing as a director, Frank Miller manages the neat trick of denting the legacies of two comics legends -- Frank Miller and Will Eisner -- in one excruciating 90-minute go. And because Miller slathered his creepy/campy fetishes all over someone else's character in a movie instead of in a comic book, he finally made all of his 21st-century artistic crutches and coastings a matter of national discussion -- not just fodder for a message-board thread where disgruntled fanboys refer to "All-Star Batman and Robin" as "ASSBAR."

God, I'll bet Lionsgate feels ripped off right now. Keep this man away from "Buck Rogers."

Spoilers henceforth.

Q. What's the story?

Eisner's Spirit was a former cop named Denny Colt, thought killed, who woke up in a cemetery and decided to smash crime in a domino mask, fedora and off-the-rack blue suit. There's a certain sneaky genius in the plainness of The Spirit's costume; it places the character in some weird nether-zone between superheroics and noir, which gave Eisner a sort of artistic blank check to do what he wanted. The character's exploits appeared in seven-page comic-book inserts in Sunday papers starting in 1940, and the generous format gave Will Eisner all kinds of latitude to play with comics language, to stretch the art form, to experiment. I'm guessing for a lot of casual comics fans, especially younger ones, "The Spirit" is one of those titles where they've been told it's Important and Seminal and Influential more than they've actually picked the damned books up and read them. If the movie changes that even a little, well, good.

(Though I was recently told by an anguished-looking comics-shop clerk that "civilians" are coming into his store asking for copies of "Frank Miller's Spirit" -- which is a bit like asking for copies of "Sidney J. Furie's Superman," as far as I'm concerned.)

With the movie, Frank Miller has basically done the exact opposite of what Eisner was doing with the comic. In his own weird way, Miller is playing it extremely safe -- cycling through his usual visual obsessions and ripping himself off and making the whole thing look deeply stylized in the exact same way "Sin City" looked deeply stylized. Miller used to talk about working on a "Sin City: 1940" comic that never came to fruition, and I wouldn't be shocked to learn he was planning to make it look a lot like this.

Miller has also taken the Denny Colt character and given him fast-healing superpowers, a black suit and a "hard-boiled" smart mouth -- turning Eisner's everyman into a cross between a declawed Wolverine and ASSBAR's Batman, basically. (As a friend put it after the screening, "I'm surprised Miller didn't have him say, 'I'm The Goddamned Spirit.'")

The movie opens with Miller's idea of The Angel of Death: a hot half-naked chick named Lorelai with a bunch of **** glued to her face. "I am Death, Denny Colt, you are the only one who has ever escaped my cold embrace," she says amid glittery light effects borrowed from "Xanadu." Then we cut to the outskirts of Central City, USA, where The Goddamned Spirit (Gabriel Macht) is getting in a knock-down drag-out fight in a cesspool with The Goddamned Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) -- a mad scientist with Cruella de Ville's fashion sense, a naughty-nurse dominatrix for an assistant (Scarlett Johansson) and a weird, unfunny habit of finding the slightest excuse to go on and on about how he hates eggs. During this opening fight, the pacing is immediately weird, and The Octopus hits The Spirit with giant wrenches and toilets and says "Come on! Toilets are ALWAYS funny!" and The Spirit hits The Octopus with kitchen sinks and says, "Well, I'll be learnin' you!" and the audience says, "Well, I guess this supposed to be campy or something."

It only gets worse from there.

Denny's childhood first love, Sand Serif (Eva Mendes), also turns up during this scene. In a wetsuit. With a gun. She and The Octopus are each after a couple of boxes of ancient mythical treasure inexplicably buried in the cesspool, I think: One box contains The Golden Fleece, which Sand wants because it's glittery, and one box contains the Blood of Heracles, which The Octopus wants because it will make him immortal.

Each villain makes off with the wrong box. The Spirit sort of investigates the case between bouts of talking grittily to himself. And a bunch of weapon-wielding women in various skimpy form-fitting outfits lust after The Spirit and/or beat the **** out of him. Sound familiar, "Sin City" fans? It's all really just an excuse for Miller to once again make moving versions of all the stuff he's been drawing obsessively for a while now -- women's asses, sneakers and boots, gloves, Nazi symbols, dinosaurs, bald guys, ancient Greek **** and fight scenes full of improbable straight-legged kicks, all of it colored black and red and white.

Q. What's good?

1. Gabriel Macht (or as I like to call him, "2008's Bruce Boxleitner") tries really really hard to find a coherent character in Miller's script, and he's going to be unfairly shunned in the weeks to come. He's especially good at recreating The Spirit's wide-eyed oh-****-I'm-in-over-my-head facial expression that Eisner drew so well.

2. Sarah Paulson does just fine as The Spirit's long-suffering doctor girlfriend.

3. Geek-fave cinematographer Bill Pope ("The Matrix," "Team America") and a battalion of post-production PC jockeys do a skillful job carbon-copying the looks of "Sin City" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." (Is there an official name for this particular brand of mostly animated "live-action" movie yet -- like "Expressionism Plagiarism Priapism" or something?)

4. There's one scene (one!) that I thought kind of worked as intended: The Spirit's walking down the street in the middle of the day, punching out purse-snatchers, and he gives a TV interview in which he tells kids to brush their teeth. There's a mild opening-scene-of-"The Incredibles" vibe to the way it's done. However, even writing that just reminds me that Brad Bird and John Lasseter almost made a "Spirit" feature in the '80s.

5. There's a truck with the words "Ditko's Delivery Service" emblazoned on the side. Denny Colt mentions "Dropsie Avenue" at one point. That's kind of neat.

Q. What's just stunningly ****ing awful?

Um, to paraphrase Fatboy: everything else?

1. The dialogue is just an endless crap memory of hard-boiled dialogue -- a whole movie of people loudly and rapidly saying stuff like, "You knew the score!" without any deeper sense of the history of the kinds of movies that dialogue is meant to reference.

2. Moratorium: No movie is ever allowed to "cleverly" reference the glowing box from "Kiss Me Deadly" again. Ever.

3. Samuel L. Jackson, like many of the actors, seems to be directing himself in many scenes and visibly loses faith in his director over the course of the production. It's terrible to watch -- especially if you know what a hard-core comics fan Jackson is. Imagine one of your artistic heroes casting you in a movie and then making a fool of you.

4. Who exactly is Spirit telling his backstory to as he walks home after the opening fight -- his cat? No one in particular? It's hard to tell.

5. I'd now like to describe a few scenes in detail. (Like the scenes you may have seen promo-ed online, these are actually worse in context.)

a. Miller is constantly creating images he clearly thinks are funny -- but he doesn't have the first clue as to how comedy is paced or staged when it actually has to move and cut together. One of the least hilarious recurring jokes in the movie involves a series of cloned henchmen (all played by Louis Lombardi) that the Octopus keeps killing in fits of pique. These guys are all grievously stupid, finish each others' sentences, and wear black t-shirts emblazoned with words like ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS, DIALOS and SOS; imagine "Don" and "Rob" from "The Dark Knight Returns" as written by a sozzled uncle who laughs at his own jokes, and you're starting to get the idea.

Anyway. In one scene, The Octopus orders one of these henchmen to commit seppuku -- which the guy starts doing, with a dumb blank grin on his face, kneeling in the foreground, the blade stuck in his stomach but no blood visible, lest the PG-13 rating be endangered. ("This kinda tickles," I think he says, the actor looking kind of embarrassed as he says it.) Meanwhile, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson are pacing back and forth behind him like they've been directed to move from point to point in a bad college art film, ignoring Lombardi and droning on and on about their plans (and eggs, I'm sure). It plays like Miller shot his storyboards and nothing else, giving the editors no leeway to find a comic rhythm.

b. Sand Serif lectures a guy about "making an perfect ass of yourself." As she says this, she is making a photocopy of her ass. No, really. The Spirit finds it later and immediately recognizes Sand Serif from it. The Frank Miller who writes ASSBAR wrote this. And he thinks it's hilarious.

c. At one point, The Spirit wakes up tied to a dental chair and says, "What smells dental?" He looks up, sees a swastika, and says, "Dental and Nazi. Great."

What follows is one of the goofiest, unfunniest, most ineptly staged scenes I have ever seen in a comic-book movie, and that includes the ones produced by Roger Corman.

Samuel L. Jackson suddenly stomps out in a full-on Nazi SS uniform and starts monologuing about experimental serums (and eggs) -- because apparently we need to know the secret origins of this character we barely care about. Jackson is flanked by Scarlett Johansson, dressed as a naughty nurse, and a bellydancer named Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega) who apparently loves to sashay around and kill men with a pair of Klingon-y swords.

At one point -- probably when Jackson was going on about runny eggs or Huevos Rancheros again, and shortly before Jackson declares someone "dead as 'Star Trek'" (???) -- Macht says, "Pardon me, but is there a point to all this? I'm getting old just listening to you." The urge to stand up and applaud was overwhelming. By the time Plaster Paris (Paz Vega) was dancing off into the snow in a belly-dancing outfit, carrying a couple of swords, I was thinking to myself, "This is the visualized inner life of a not-well man."

d. There's this cute rookie cop (Stana Tatic) who goes on and on about Sand Serif's "Elektra complex." It's the sort of weirdly self-congratulatory joke -- a nod to Miller's past "Daredevil" glory that only comics insiders will get -- that turns up all over this movie.

In another scene, someone sees The Spirit hanging from a skyscraper and says, "You'll believe a man CAN'T fly!" Seriously? A pun based on the advertising tagline from a 1978 superhero movie? Who is that gag for, exactly? It's like you're watching a very expensive series of inside jokes, or reading a really bad webcomic with a vast continuity and its own tiny and deeply insular LiveJournal community.

This leads me to my larger rant: Watching the movie, I really started to wonder if Miller suffers from that artist's malady where he's been called a "genius" and a "maverick" so many times, he's settled into a nice comfy couch inside his own head and is now perfectly happy cycling through a tiny set of visual obsessions that only he finds funny or profound.

This isn't the Frank Miller who wrote and/or drew dense, scary, funny, moody, multilayered sci-fi satires -- classics like "Ronin" or "Give Me Liberty" or "The Dark Knight Returns" or his staggering takes on Elektra and Daredevil. That Frank Miller was like the James Cameron of comics, young and hungry and drunk on telling bad-ass popular stories full of strong women.

Maybe Hollywood thought it was hiring that Frank Miller to adapt "The Spirit." What Hollywood is about to learn -- in a very public and embarrassing way -- is that the "Frank Miller" comics fans once spoke of in hushed tones stopped making good stories about 10 years ago, if you count "300" as his last ambitious book. It's worth pointing out here that Rodriguez was skillfully remixing Miller's 10- and 15-year-old material for "Sin City" -- material that gets weaker and weaker as that series (and that movie) goes on. (Seriously: Try reading the last "Sin City" book, "Hell and Back," and getting any nutrition from that silly wet dream of a drug hallucination of a rescue fantasy.)

Miller can still draw -- even if he now gives every character hands and feet so Looney Tunes large, I'm surprised the gloves don't have three fingers -- but as a writer, he's become reduced, primitive, a "hard-boiled" parody of himself. He keeps saying in interviews, "I just do the stuff I do!," but he's wrong -- he's doing less and less. I've heard he was going through some rough times while making "The Dark Knight Strikes Again," so I should probably cut the man some slack on that book. But couldn’t he have just taken a break instead of taking a fascinating pop-art superhero premise and executing it without a single establishing or crowd shot -- relying instead on hammy narration, jumbled close-ups and embarrassing Photoshop filters to get the job done? Reading "Dark Knight Strikes," your jaw drops as Miller just plain skips over the parts of the story he doesn't feel like telling. And you wonder if one of the most influential comic writer/artists of the late 20th century -- the man who helped make comics safe for a more grown-up audience -- has lost his nerve, his mind, or just his desire to think things through and bust his ass.

Miller inspired a generation of writers and artists to take comics seriously with "Ronin" (1983), "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" (1986), "Elektra: Assassin" (1986), "Batman: Year One" (1987), "Give Me Liberty" (1990) and "Sin City: The Hard Goodbye" (1991). Now he just barely manages to write "All-Star Batman & Robin," one of the most stupid, vile and reviled Caped Crusader comics ever committed to print.

My point being: Hollywood just gave the keys to a major motion picture to today's Frank Miller, an artist who needs to get hungry again, a guy who now coasts on a greatest-hits list of pumped-up sight gags. And he ****ed up "The Spirit" big-time, and took the late Will Eisner's legacy with him.

Q. What did your fellow screening attendees have to say afterward?

"A.R.," photographer: "What the **** was that? No, seriously -- what the **** was that?"

"F.Q.," actuary: "Frank Miller must hate Jesus. Why else would Frank give Him this turd on His birthday?"

"P.H.," telemarketer, responding to F.Q.: "Maybe Miller's German and thinks you're supposed to lay cable on your friends. That would sure explain why he gave Scarlett Johansson a second head made out of Hitler."

[I actually had to e-mail P.H. later and find out what he meant. "'Lay cable' is a crudity that describes the action of defecating," he explained, helpfully. "ScarJo's Hitler head comes from that sequence in the Nazi room where Samuel L. Jackson melts a cat: Miller cuts back to Scarlett like four times, and there's a giant picture behind her that makes it look like Hitler's head is growing from her shoulder."]

"Y.Y.," forensic anthropologist: "Some may say Will Eisner is rolling over in his grave. He isn't -- Frank Miller never gave him the chance. Frank Miller dug him up, threw him in the mud, and beat him over the head with a putrid toilet. And then had the gall to call it an homage."

"R.P.," console-gaming engineer: "If Rodriguez is involved, I'd go see a 'Sin City 2,' but pure, unadulterated Miller at this point just depresses the **** out of me -- not to mention makes me actually resent the fact that, back in high school, 'Dark Knight' and 'Sin City' were some of the first comics to really get me jazzed about the medium. But Jesus Christ -- I wanted to hang myself after listening to him ramble on about some ******** or other at Comic-Con; the guy's just taken self-aggrandizing creative bankruptcy to whole new levels, and I really don't want to have to sit through two hours that just remind me of that fact. Whoa. Not sure where that came from. End rant."

 

[Octoberist]

I have to say that Alexandria's review on aint it cool news is actually funny.

 

[3 Dev Adam]

Wella wella wella, I saw it at last. The entire movie. So, I can say with utter clarity: FIRST! And, then, reiterate what I've been saying since day one: FRANK MILLER'S SPIRIT IS A STEAMING PILE OF TURD.

 

[Lighthouse]

I have to say that Alexandria's review on aint it cool news is actually funny.

She reviews very rarely nowadays but I've always loved reading them. Moriarty, Mr. Beaks and her are some of my favorite critics.

 

[Octoberist]

I also want to point out that Alexandria's review was extreme honest yet fair. She does a great job of summarizing Frank Miller's career without any hate. She and I feel the same sentiment about Miller and his work; he was a visionary who revolutionized comics forever with to honestly great stories. But along the way, he lost it.

I think a lot people (read: fanboys) don't want Miller to fail. I think many want him to succeed. That's why we have rogue trooper and Man-Bat here. I understand where they are coming from. My inner-fanboy in me says that Miller should stop what he's doing and look back at his body of work. Perhaps, he needs to rethink his approach to storytelling at this point in his career. Otherwise, he'll end up being a sinking ship.

 

[Octoberist]

She reviews very rarely nowadays but I've always loved reading them. Moriarty, Mr. Beaks and her are some of my favorite critics.

I think it's because her reviews are reasonable; you believe every word.

 

[mego joe]

Here's one from Rotten Tomatoes:


Its like walking into your office and finding a buxom, leggy blonde on your desk, begging for your help. Its going to be so much fun, how can you say no?
by Fiore Mastracci | December 24, 2008


THE SPIRIT

I walked into the screening for the SPIRIT with no expectations. Why should I? What was the use? Another movie based on a comic; they were a dime a dozen these days. Besides, I'm selective about my comic reading; almost picky. THE SPIRIT hadn't been on my list, so you could say I went in untainted. Couldn't say the same for the other 'critics' present. Oh, they looked like critics, but they were hiding behind the fear and intimidation this city dishes out like checks at the first of the month. Mousy dames and rotund scribes filled with self-importance who cower when the real bad guys stand in their way.

Some diamond dapper named Frank Miller penned and directed this film. He's always been known for being a bit touched. The city can do that to you. You see too much of its dirty underbelly and something snaps. Everyone knows it and prays it doesn't happen to them. It happened to Miller, and this time, it really showed. This SPIRIT was so far over the top no one knew what to make of it. They scratched their heads and tried to shield the bewildered look on their faces. Not me. I laughed. I got it. I knew what Miller was doing. It was a send up. He'd had enough of all those dime graphic novels making millions in celluloid, so he lambasted them in the only manner he knew how. Yeah, I understood Miller. Maybe he wasn't so touched after all. I laughed more at this movie than any other movie this year, save for "Tropic Thunder".

So as I sat in my worn-out theatre chair and felt the stickiness of week old soda and candy on the floor, I realized some gunsle named Bill Pope and a broad called Nancy St. John were responsible for the look of THE SPIRIT. He was a Director of Photography and she was FX Supervisor; yeah, she supervised alright. They took Miller's ideas and transformed them into visual eroticism. I was lookin' at somethin' that bounced from real life to animation and any combination between. It was weird, but it was fun. Perhaps too much fun. It confused the others. While I laughed, they gave me the icy stare and cold shoulder. Any minute, the coppers would come and pull a Minsky. Then the real fun would start.

But I stayed. I stayed because I liked the idea of Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes both flashing too much leg and cleavage for evil and good. I couldn't hold back the laughter of Samuel L. Jackson dressed as a Nazi Officer for an interrogation scene, complete with cant camera angles reminiscent of the "Batman" TV series. There was a hero, Gabriel Macht, who could seduce any woman by merely saying 'hello' and a torturer in what could barely be called a dance skirt named Plaster of Paris. Who can keep a straight face with these kinds of shenanigans? Not me; nor would I even try!

I'd seen something like this movie before. It reminded me of "Pulp Fiction" and "Sin City" all mixed carelessly with "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". But this had a new twist. Something had set Miller over the fence. Cheap tequila, single malt scotch, something stronger? I didn't know, and I didn't want to find out. I just knew I was enjoying the show and whatever was scratching his soul could just keep on scratching. There was something familiar about the opening song, too. Some cat named Elfman had written a tune that sounded just like it down at the Oingo Boingo Club. Wouldn't be surprised if there was legal trouble there; but that wasn't my concern %u2013 at least not yet.

So while the urchins scrambled looking for something familiar they could identify with, I enjoyed a novel type of movie. THE SPIRIT was funny. It looked good, too; like a tall leggy blonde sitting on your desk when you return to the office. Some won't get it; some never do. But if you're looking for a film so bizarre it's stimulating, then THE SPIRIT is your ticket. You can check out these scenes.

KEY SCENES TO LOOK FOR:
1. THE FIGHT IN THE BOG
2. THE SILOUHETTE FIGHTS
3. ANY SCENE WITH LADY DEATH

THE RATING FOR SPIRIT = A
BFCA RATING = 9/10

This guy thinks he 'gets it' b/c he's seeing it as a send up and parady. But I don't think that's wha Miller intended, is it?

Is Miller REALLY parodying his own work and essentially making fun of comic book films and Eisner's creation?

 

[Lighthouse]

This guy thinks he 'gets it' b/c he's seeing it as a send up and parady. But I don't think that's wha Miller intended, is it?

Is Miller REALLY parodying his own work and essentially making fun of comic book films and Eisner's creation?

If he wanted to do that, it should have been his own work and not someone elses. If Frank took it seriously and failed, it would be better than doing this laughably against someone he claimed as a friend. Personally, I think reviewer has totally misinterpreted Frank's intentions.

 

[theMan-Bat]

Another positive review:
A film review by Chris Barsanti - Copyright © 2008 Filmcritic.com

It's been too long since we've had a proper comic book hero on the screen. There's been enough of them running around and bashing up the bad guys in a CGI-enhanced fashion, that's for sure. But it's hard to look at the recent cinematic incarnations of Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne and call them "superheroes;" even if they keep their identities secret and have nifty outfits. "Billionaire action figures" would be more appropriate, what with all their high-priced gadgetry and super-duper hideouts. Whatever happened to the caped heroes who kept an eye on the city's dark alleys and took out the bad guys with nothing more than a sock to the jaw?

Frank Miller's jazzy The Spirit answers that question with a cocky wink and a grin. The streets of Central City are almost always dark and threatening, but they're watched over by a guardian who used to be a cop named Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht, wonderfully deadpan). One near-death experience later and Colt has dug himself out of his own grave. He then decides to serve the city as a masked avenger known as The Spirit, whose only weapons are a ability to absorb ridiculous amounts of punishment and his fists.

There's a supervillain out there called The Octopus (played with rarely-seen operatic relish by Samuel L. Jackson) and a squad of curvaceous femme fatales (Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, and Paz Vega, to name just a view of the film's many pouty-lipped vixens) to fall in dangerous love with. The Octopus wants something that will make him invincible, and he's going after an old flame of The Spirit's to get it. So The Spirit leaps into the snowy night, long duster like a cape and blood-red tie flapping in the wind as he bounds across rooftops and intones odes to the object of his affection, the city: "She's my sweetheart, my play thing." And then he gets beat up; a lot. But he always has a quip to spit out the side of his mouth, and a friendly cat who's frequently nearby for him to gripe to.

It's surprising that one of the year's most refreshingly fun films would come from the man who helped Robert Rodriguez create the infinite loop of mind-numbing sadism that was Sin City (tongue-in-cheek or not, after the thirteenth pistol whipping, it got old). This time out, graphic novelist Miller takes the directorial reins himself to adapt that comic-book touchstone, the late Will Eisner's mid-century superhero series. While Eisner's classical storytelling verve and soft-touch humanity would seem an odd fit for Miller -- whose most famous works, like Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns -- are lavished with cynical ultra-violence, the two artists' viewpoints mesh rather beautifully here.

As in Sin City, each frame of The Spirit is more painted than filmed. Miller's performers work inside cartoonish cityscapes that draw equally from his own jagged style and Eisner's Sunday funnies look. It's a frankly gorgeous effect, liberated by the fact that Miller adapted freely from Eisner's panels -- the two were longtime friends -- to create an organic story instead of slavishly following the master's work.

Although The Spirit is in part a classic superhero story, with a square-jawed hero who knows how to take a punch and kiss a dame until she's weak in the knees, it's also a freeform lark that has more fun than anything that has been coming out of the Marvel sausage factory. What with flocks of cloned idiot henchmen (all played by Louis Lombardi) available for easy slapstick, and the Octopus' tendency toward elaborate costumery (one scene has him and his hench-girl in samurai-gear, another in full SS regalia), there's a drift here toward full-on giddy surrealism that beats anything you'll find in the next Incredible Hulk.

In short, it's neat-o.

http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/The-Spirit

 

[Lighthouse]

Another critic I don't always agree with, but enjoy reading all the same, James Berardinelli.

http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1433

The Spirit is an example of what can happen to a comic book-inspired movie when the sense of style becomes so pervasive that it overwhelms everything else, including an unremarkable superhero adventure. Unfortunately, the eye candy quickly grows stale and repetitive and, unlike Sin City, which layered the visuals with an engaging, fast-paced, smart-as-tacks story, The Spirit doesn't have anything as remarkable to fall back upon. Due in large part to the participation of adaptor/director Frank Miller (who is on his own here after helping out Robert Rodriguez on Sin City), the two films share a similar hyperstylized neo-noir look and feel, but that's where the similarities end.

In bringing Will Eisner's comic series to the screen, Miller has fallen back on similar techniques to those that worked in Sin City. His limitations as a director get in the way but, while he may not know what to do when there are actors on the screen, he and cinematographer Bill Pope make everything look impressive. For much of The Spirit, the color is so desaturated that the film appears to be almost in black-and-white (with the title character's red tie, which maintains its hue, standing out like the little girl's dress in Schindler's List). A flashback sequence is in sepia-and-white. Full color is used only for scenes of intense emotion. There's a lot of computer generated imagery and animation. Silhouettes and shadows play big parts in the visual palette. For a while, the appearance of the film is rich enough to envelop the viewer but it eventually becomes apparent that it's a distraction from the story's limitations. Elements of The Spirit are suspiciously like those from a low-rent Batman rip-off. The concept of a mysterious, masked vigilante working with the police to eliminate crime in his city sounds more than a little familiar.

The lead character is played by Gabriel Macht who, by donning a Lone Ranger-style mask, is unrecognizable as his alter ego. Hey, if glasses can confuse people from not seeing Superman when they look at Clark Kent, who's going to complain about a mask? As a result of something that happened in his past, The Spirit is pretty much invulnerable. He can be cut and shot but his body regenerates quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, the same is also true of his nemesis, The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). In James Bond villain fashion, The Octopus wants unlimited power and it's up to The Spirit to stop him. Complicating matters is the involvement of Sand Serif (Eva Mendes), a world-famous jewelry thief who has something wanted by both The Spirit and The Octopus. Once the battle lines are drawn, The Spirit finds himself aided by Police Commissioner Dolan (Dan Lauria) and his daughter, Ellen (Sarah Paulson), while The Octopus has a scientist sidekick (Scarlett Johansson) and several cloned idiot henchmen (Louis Lombardi).

At times, it's difficult to determine whether Miller intends for us to take the movie seriously or whether it's intended as a parody. The dialogue sounds like it was lifted from a potboiler, the acting is frequently embarrassing, and there are times when the drama is so corny that it borders on laugh-inducing. The effect kills any element of suspense or tension but allows The Spirit to be perversely enjoyed as unintentional comedy. Granted, some of the levity is in place on purpose, but I don't think Miller intended for viewers to be chortling their way through Samuel L. Jackson's way-over-the-top monologues. The Octopus isn't sinister; he's silly. And The Spirit is far too dull and personality-deficient to be able to hold together a motion picture. He's easily the least interesting of all the significant characters. And, while Nazi imagery is normally expected to evoke a reaction of disgust, its use here is more in the vein of "Springtime for Hitler." For that scene, I was wondering if Mel Brooks had been hired as an unpaid advisor.

With Sin City and 300 both generating healthy business at the box office, Frank Miller was able to parlay his name into a directing deal. The Spirit indicates that, while his ability as an illustrator is intact, he needs the guiding hand of another to keep things tightly focused, well-paced, and professional. The Spirit lacks the driving energy it needs to keep viewers involved in what's going on. It feels out-of-whack, as if so much effort was poured into making the film look cool that other equally important areas were neglected. The action is not exciting, the humor is a little too cheesy, and the drama is half-baked. There are good things to be said about The Spirit, but not enough of them to outweigh the bad.

 

[brisaacs]

Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

The city is an inky maze of tenements and skyscrapers and back alleys, and the dialogue is so hard-boiled you could just about break your tooth on it. The hero, with his fedora, trench coat, Lone Ranger mask, and bloodred necktie — one of the only slashes of color on display — is a former detective who has become a ghost, but there's nothing particularly supernatural about his attitude. Dead or alive (or somewhere in between), he's the dame-slapping tough guy of a thousand film noirs and film-noir knockoffs.
The Spirit, an adaptation of the legendary comic strip created by Will Eisner in 1940, was directed by Frank Miller, who showed Eisner's influence in the creation of his graphic novels Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. The movie is heavy — one might even say mythic — with the reverent weight of cross-generational pedigree. But if, like me, you stand outside the circle of comic-book obsessives, The Spirit comes off as just another ludicrously knowing and mannered noir pastiche, full of burnt-end romance and ''style,'' but robotic at its core. It's like the 2005 movie version of Sin City without all that arresting Day-Glo splatter. The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) must face down the Octopus, a baddie who wants to acquire a vase that holds the blood of Hercules (to make him immortal); he's played by Samuel L. Jackson with a cackle that is never quite dangerous. As the vamps, Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson might be posing for a fashion spread with just one note to play — gorgeous high-***** mockery. Miller stages it all with sleek angularity, but it's the film's clichés that seem to have lived forever. C

 

[brisaacs]

Michael Phillips |Tribune critic

Rating: 1 star (poor)


We have our winning entry in the "worst scene in 2008 cinema" sweepstakes. It arrives halfway through the achingly poor screen version of "The Spirit," based on the comic book series begun in 1940 by artist and writer Will Eisner. In a Nazi vaudeville interlude, Samuel L. Jackson, dressed like Col. Klink with a monocle, shares the screen with Scarlett Johansson, dolled up as if rehearsals for a remake of "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" were starting any minute. They gas on about their plans for immortality, and Hercules' mystical blood, and various failed experiments while their prisoner, the masked, supernaturally hardy crime-fighter known as The Spirit, played by Gabriel Macht, sits there muttering how bored he is with their act. And how. Dull, yet offensive. Nice trick.

Frank Miller wrote and directed this adaptation, in a visual style lazily close to that of his "Sin City." You know the vibe: stark, grim silhouettes, urban decay by the ton, blood that looks pretty because it oozes from a victim's skull in black-and-white. It's not "real," so the violence can spill over the top and still stay within the Motion Picture Association of America's jaded notions of a PG-13 rating.

All you hormonally addled teens may take solace in the "great eye candy" (as Johansson's character describes herself) provided by Johansson and Eva Mendes, the latter of whom is shown at one point photocopying her posterior. Yet even the cheesecake curdles. Director Miller chops the action into awkwardly paced illustrations of a scene rather than keeping the scene in fluid motion. Macht, the Robert Cummings of our generation, hasn't figured out how seriously to take his assignment or what sort of energy to provide. Only Sarah Paulson, as the Spirit's doctor and sometime lover, seems to be in there playing the scenes as if she were a human being in a comic book superhero scenario, as opposed to a comic book character stuck in a cruddy movie.

 

[brisaacs]

Ty Burr, Boston Globe Staff

The Spirit 1 1/2 stars


'The Spirit' moves from comics to farce

Ty Burr, Globe Staff 12/25/2008
It must really hurt to kill the thing you love.
"The Spirit" was always for connoisseurs and cultists. Created by the late, great Will Eisner in 1940, it may have been the first auteur comic book, unbeholden to DC or Marvel and written with a literate wit that owed equal amounts to film noir and Eisner's Jewish New York roots. Imagine "Spider-Man" written by a tougher, more soulful Jules Feiffer (who, in fact, was Eisner's assistant early on) and you're halfway there.
Frank Miller, of course, is the very model of a modern comics auteur: the writer-illustrator who retooled "Batman" into "The Dark Knight" in the 1980s and created the dark, anarchic "Sin City" in the 1990s. He directed the film version of "Sin City" in 2005 - a blast of vicious pulp energy - and now has brought one of his acknowledged influences to the screen. If anyone could honor "The Spirit," it should be Miller.
Enough history; how's the movie? In a word: dispiriting. Taking the same visual approach to this material that he did to "Sin City" - tilted comic-panel angles, intentionally cartoonish action, images desaturated of color except for one key element (like yellow police tape or the hero's red necktie) - Miller turns "The Spirit" into a hambone farce. Worse, by hiring well-known actors and indulging their worst impulses, he destroys the tart irony Eisner built into every frame.
Gabriel Macht plays the barely masked hero - a former Central City cop mysteriously brought back from the dead to fight crime - and he at least understands that the Spirit's a Bogart figure with supernatural touches. The film's villain - in more ways than one - is Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus, an egg-obsessed criminal mastermind bent on achieving immortality. Jackson's performance is one for the record books: He screams, he preens, he schpritzes, and when all else fails, he repeats his lines over and over. Over and over. Over and over.
At least he's trying. (Really trying.) As two of the many wasp-waisted femmes fatales who alternately swoon for the Spirit and try to kill him, Eva Mendes (as Sand Saref) and Scarlett Johansson (as Silken Floss; the names are Eisner's inventions) have no clue how to get on the comic book's mordant/serious/goofy wavelength. Accordingly, they simply shut down. Both actresses are lovely to look at and actively painful to hear.
A vase of Hercules' blood and long-lost Argonaut treasure figure into the plot, but just barely. Miller is aiming for pure style - another man's style at that - and it's just too idiosyncratic to translate across mediums. (There's a reason a "Spirit" movie was never made while Eisner was alive; a 1987 TV pilot never took off.) The movie's cleverest idea is to give the Octopus identical clone henchmen with names like Phobos, Logos, and Huevos, all played by Louis Lombardi with a marvelous fat-boy idiot grin. They don't mind committing hara-kiri on command. Well before "The Spirit" gives up the ghost, neither will you.

 

[brisaacs]

Robert Wilonsky

Village Voice

The Spirit Rendered a Grim Shade of Dull

With the fanboys anxiously eying Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation, Frank Miller's version of The Spirit sneaks into theaters almost unnoticed on Christmas Day—good thing, too. Miller, comics-writing icon turned director, has rendered comics-industry revolutionary Will Eisner's crime fighter Denny Colt a grim shade of dull—all talk, no action, save for a few slapstick mash-ups of old Warner Bros. cartoons and Miller's own Sin City, which has the effect of turning Eisner's Technicolor comic into a gray glob of hardboiled mush. Colt (Gabriel Macht, ehh), dead and deadpan, is a killed cop resurrected courtesy of the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson turned up to 11), a baddie who now wants the good guy dead, I tell ya, dead. Complicating matters are the femme fatales stopping by between Maxim shoots: Eva Mendes as the lost love, Jaime King as the angel of death, and Scarlett Johansson as the Octopus's extra tentacle. Miller gets away with his revisionist redo because, at this late date, The Spirit's been spirited away to the history books. Besides, the movie's so full of nods to comics and their creators (from DC Comics founder Harry Donenfeld to artist Steve Ditko) that the fanboys will find room in their heart to forgive the desecration. Everyone else won't care at all.

 

[theMan-Bat]

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

Comic book movies tend to be summer fare. While Iron Man and The Dark Knight were this year's hot-weather highlights, The Spirit, in its dark artiness, works well during this chillier season.
Based on the comic books by Will Eisner and written and directed by Frank Miller, it resembles Sin City, which Miller co-directed, and Miller's comic series 300.
With its dark palette and stylized look, it also incorporates an evocative film noir style. Some performances are particularly fun, such as Samuel L. Jackson's villainous Octopus and Eva Mendes' seductive bad girl, Sand Seref. And Gabriel Macht, as the Spirit, acquits himself with wit and dash.
But others can't seem to make up their minds whether to play it straight or cartoonish, particularly Scarlett Johansson, who is rather stiff as the Octopus' assistant.
The setting is a metropolis called Central City, and the era is a mélange of the contemporary (cellphones, the Internet), the future (cloned evil henchmen) and the glamorous past (men wear hats, women are dripping in jewels and everyone rides in cabs).
The masked Spirit is the reconfigured body of murdered cop Denny Colt, and he is as devoted to his city as Batman is to Gotham. He hunts down bad guys and protects the populace, which regards him gratefully — particularly the women.
But keeping watch on the many tentacles of the psychotic Octopus is the Spirit's chief concern. A former coroner, the fiendish Octopus is out to control the city. But his bizarre likes and dislikes are what most catch our attention. ("You know I don't like egg on my face," he hollers. "No egg on my face!") The script has other moments of offbeat humor, yet the stylized production design, with its moody look, is perhaps the most striking aspect of the film.
The Spirit is uneven, but its adventure provides some amusing, escapist fun.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2008-12-23-the-spirit_N.htm

 

[dr.strange]

its early christmas morning here.i don't know if ill check it out or not.critics and gasp! shh message boarders can be wrong.if this film tanks here,theres always the overseas market and dvd rentals....instant cult classic...even if its for being awful.

 

[Gamma Ray]

This is a critical flop. Hopefully it will flop in the BO, too.

 

[Christmas]

Ebert is a bastard for badmouthing Blade Runner when it came out. There, I said it.

He came around for the final cut. Gave it a better review and looked back on his pan with a strange sense of regret.


Oh, and my sympathies this Holiday season for those who are fans of The Spirit comic.

 

[CLARKY]

This movie will suck. I won't criticize the actors because I have the feeling they will do well (not sure about S.Jackson) but I am against Miller's version of the Spirit. It is not Will Eisner's Spirit, it will be F.Miller's Spirit or the Spirit in Sin city. Pretending he would do a good job because he had "privileged" relationship with the guy he claims to be as his mentor, is, IMO, a blind opinion. But that is what F.Miller does anyway : saying crap and people follow the genius blindly.
After all , as he puts it : "he can't do it in a different way : he is who he is, he is he."

 

[brisaacs]

This is a critical flop. Hopefully it will flop in the BO, too.

Unfortunately if Hollywood has shown us anything, bad reviews doesn't always affect the box office.
If it did, then Will Farrell & Adam Sandler wouldn't have careers.

 

[rogue trooper]

This is a critical flop.

Not really. As you can see, reviews are mixed.

Hopefully it will flop in the BO, too.

I doubt it.

 

[Mercurius]

Well, well, well: it was quite plain it would be critically smashed. Audiences also won't give it a damn.

I'm not sayin' "I told ya" because this crappy movie had "flop" written all over it from scratch.

Godspeed, The Spino.

 

[rogue trooper]

Edit.