The Spirit

To be completely honest, I knew next to nothing about the Will Eisner crimefighter before heading off to the movies. So I decided to wikipedia him, and let me tell you that he has a full and rich history. Something that caught my eye was his nemesis the Octopus. Apparently, he never showed his face, only his hands. Sorta like the Claw from Inspector Gadget. Anyways, as we all know from the advertisements Samuel L. Jackson's Octopus is a very visual Octopus. That's really not as dirty as it sounds.
What Frank Miller does right here is with the story lay out and the visual effects. It is the same thing with Sin City and 300, it is like watching a comic book. All of these movies are visually stunning.
Even with that said, this was not the best of the three....not by a long shot. I went in to this movie wanting to like it, really I did. It is not that the movie was bad, but have you ever wished you waited until DVD or the dollar theater to watch a movie? That is how I felt through this whole thing. What worked for Miller's other contributions to Hollywood does not work here. The gritty grit dialogue that he is famous for doesn't work in the world of the Spirit. It would be like comparing The Dark Knight Returns to All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder. Just cause it works sometimes, doesn't mean you should do it ALL the time.


Side note: what the deuce is Miller's fascination with suicide, prostitutes, and Nazis? At least two out of the three appear in all his work. We get all three in the Spirt.


As for the acting, it was so over the top that the top wasn't even in sight. I was expecting it to be over the top, so that part didn't bother me. What did bother me was the Spirit himself, played by Gabriel Macht. I'm pretty sure he goes to the George Clooney School For Acting. Take that however you want. There were some pretty enjoyable scenes, the fighting was very well choreographed,and there were was pretty great one-liners. My favorite was in relation to the Spirit talking to the Octopus, "I'm gonna kill you all kinds of dead". It reminded me of the speech patterns of Superboy-Prime.
I didn't hate the movie, but I didn't love it like I was hoping to either. I'd pick this up in the dollar bin.