Review: The Spirit

Self-indulgent adaptation of a comic strip, has bland Stephen Macht playing the title character, a supposedly dead cop come back to life as a seemingly indestructible masked avenger (in a suit and tie, no less!) to catch the bad guys that the cops (headed by Commissioner Dan Lauria) can’t get to. His arch-nemesis is the similarly unstoppable, uber-megalomaniacal Octopus (an uber-hyper Samuel L. Jackson), who is accompanied by a scientist/assistant (Scarlett Johansson), and a series of cloned buffoon henchmen (Louis Lombardi). His old flame is the stupidly named Sand Serif (Eva Mendes), who has turned to a life of crime as a jewel thief, whilst other women in his life (the guy gets around!) include Sarah Paulson as Lauria’s daughter, Jaime King (from “Sin City”) as Lorelei (an apparent Angel of Death...or something), and Paz Vega as someone named Plaster of Paris (I kid you not).

 

The idea wasn’t a bad one in theory. Frank Miller had quickly become a big thing in Hollywood, after his graphic novels were turned into successful films such as “Batman Begins”, “The Dark Knight”, “Sin City”, and “300” (of which I really only liked “Sin City”). So here he was given the directorial gig (his first solo directorial effort) on yet another comic book flick, even shooting it in similar visual style to Robert Rodriguez’s film version of Miller’s “Sin City” (This one’s more superhero-oriented, though). Unfortunately, this film is based on a Will Eisner comic created in 1940, and Miller’s film is a total misfire of sometimes embarrassing proportions. I’m still not entirely convinced Miller knew what he was trying to achieve, especially with tone. It’s weird and stupid (apparently the comic mixed comedy and action, but Miller cocks up the balance completely), and ineffectual, and will likely be someone’s idea of a good movie. It’s just not mine, and unlikely to be a lot of other people’s either. This damn fool done lost his mind and got a hold of a movie camera! It ain’t no “Sin City”, and plays like a mix of that film, “Dick Tracy” and “The Shadow”. That’s not a compliment.

 

When Dan Lauria (forever known as the dad from “The Wonder Years”) gives the most impressive performance (he was born to play a comic book cop in my opinion), you know the film’s in trouble. Jackson tries hard (perhaps too hard) to make his scenes work, but his scenes with Johansson and Lombardi come off as cheap and dumb imitations of the Hackman-Perrine-Beatty scenes in “Superman” (And don’t tell me the comparison is unwarranted, at one point someone even says ‘You’ll believe a man can’t fly’- probably the funniest line in the film). After a while, Jackson even starts to look a little embarrassed. He should be, and so should Miller. Is this film his private joke on Hollywood? It’s awful, a true WTF? moment that lasts for about a hundred interminably dull, insufferably weird minutes. Perhaps it was unfilmable (Yes, spellcheck it is a word damnit!), it’s certainly pretty unwatchable, and seems indicative of a writer-director with way too much creative control, and questionable filmmaking talent.

 

I didn’t get this film at all, though thanks largely to cinematographer Bill Pope (“Darkman”, “Bound”, “The Matrix”, “Army of Darkness”), it looks fabulous (kinda more ‘pretty’ than “Sin City”, borderline B&W, with the occasional splash of colour like The Spirit’s red tie). And speaking of looking fabulous, Johansson and especially Mendes indeed do look fabulous here, but both are terrible (Johansson can’t act and the sooner everyone else realises this fact the better we’ll all be for it). Macht is a curious choice for the lead, and unfortunately a charismatic black hole in a role that cries out for someone with presence. Scripted by the director (apparently a close friend of Eisner’s), whom I doubt we’ll see much more of behind the camera. Stick to your strengths, Mr. Miller (i.e. comic book writing, not movies. He’s certainly not good with actors).

 

Rating: D+