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Here's my review of The Spirit, which I saw on Saturday. I imagine fans of the comic will be able to flesh out some of the schizophrenia of the film, though it obviously ought to be able to stand on its own. It doesn't.
The Spirit
It has been remarked that The Spirit is the triumph of "style over substance." If only this were true. Style over substance would imply some substance. The Spirit is the wholesale replacement of substance with style.
The film is based on Will Eisner's 1940s comics, and is set in the fictional Central City. It takes place in an amalgam of times, blending old styles with new technologies. We see photocopiers and cell phones, yet the women all look like Vargas girls, and the men all wear fedoras. This includes the titular Spirit (Gabriel Macht), who has died and come back to life, and has an Indiana Jones-like attachment to his hat.
I'd like to tell you exactly what makes the Spirit a superhero, but the film doesn't tell us much, and what it shows us is inconsistent. One minute, our domino-masked hero is performing impossible gymnastic feats. The next, he's losing simple fist fights to his nemesis. Fifteen minutes later, he's punching out thieves with remarkable force. The only constant in his abilities is that, having already died, he can take an awful lot of punishment and heal up quickly. If The Spirit is a low-rent Sin City -- and it is -- then its protagonist is a low-rent Wolverine.
His other talent is a near-supernatural ability to charm women. "You're in love with every women you meet, Mr. Spirit. You say lovely things to all of us and you mean every word you say," says Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson). It's an interesting touch, but given that this stunning charisma actually saves his life at one point, audiences deserve something resembling an explanation. Charm isn't the kind of trait you'd intuitively expect to pick up by coming back from the dead.
The film's biggest misstep -- though it has a great deal of competition -- is its depiction of The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). The Octopus is the Spirit's arch-enemy (they all have one, don't you know), and in the comics he's a master of disguise. On film, it's a good deal harder to obscure his identity, and no attempt is made to do so. The result is that Jackson parades around in an array of random outfits with no apparent usefulness. His character is one big, walking non-sequitur, wearing everything from fur coats to karategis.
Like any villain, The Octopus does have a plan, and that plan needs some thwarting. It's almost too silly to repeat: The Octopus is trying to obtain the blood of Heracles (yes, the character from Greek mythology). He believes that drinking it, along with his own serums, will grant him immorality. And being immortal, "everyone will have to do what I say."
The visuals here are nice to look at most of the time, but they're applied inconsistently, and largely for their own sake. One can understand why the blade of a sword would be painted red, but why color a portion of a woman's shoe? The noirish tint overlayed for the majority of the film fluctuates conspicuously; it ranges from almost-normal to flat black-and-white, and never feels quite right.
There is some enjoyment to be had here, provided you ignore the movie's sporadic attempts at action and intrigue, and bask in the randomness and fairly effective humor instead. One can easily imagine The Spirit making for a wonderful drinking game one day. Until that day, it is nothing more or less than your one and only chance to see Samuel L. Jackson in a Nazi uniform.
It has been remarked that The Spirit is the triumph of "style over substance." If only this were true. Style over substance would imply some substance. The Spirit is the wholesale replacement of substance with style.
The film is based on Will Eisner's 1940s comics, and is set in the fictional Central City. It takes place in an amalgam of times, blending old styles with new technologies. We see photocopiers and cell phones, yet the women all look like Vargas girls, and the men all wear fedoras. This includes the titular Spirit (Gabriel Macht), who has died and come back to life, and has an Indiana Jones-like attachment to his hat.
I'd like to tell you exactly what makes the Spirit a superhero, but the film doesn't tell us much, and what it shows us is inconsistent. One minute, our domino-masked hero is performing impossible gymnastic feats. The next, he's losing simple fist fights to his nemesis. Fifteen minutes later, he's punching out thieves with remarkable force. The only constant in his abilities is that, having already died, he can take an awful lot of punishment and heal up quickly. If The Spirit is a low-rent Sin City -- and it is -- then its protagonist is a low-rent Wolverine.
His other talent is a near-supernatural ability to charm women. "You're in love with every women you meet, Mr. Spirit. You say lovely things to all of us and you mean every word you say," says Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson). It's an interesting touch, but given that this stunning charisma actually saves his life at one point, audiences deserve something resembling an explanation. Charm isn't the kind of trait you'd intuitively expect to pick up by coming back from the dead.
The film's biggest misstep -- though it has a great deal of competition -- is its depiction of The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). The Octopus is the Spirit's arch-enemy (they all have one, don't you know), and in the comics he's a master of disguise. On film, it's a good deal harder to obscure his identity, and no attempt is made to do so. The result is that Jackson parades around in an array of random outfits with no apparent usefulness. His character is one big, walking non-sequitur, wearing everything from fur coats to karategis.
Like any villain, The Octopus does have a plan, and that plan needs some thwarting. It's almost too silly to repeat: The Octopus is trying to obtain the blood of Heracles (yes, the character from Greek mythology). He believes that drinking it, along with his own serums, will grant him immorality. And being immortal, "everyone will have to do what I say."
The visuals here are nice to look at most of the time, but they're applied inconsistently, and largely for their own sake. One can understand why the blade of a sword would be painted red, but why color a portion of a woman's shoe? The noirish tint overlayed for the majority of the film fluctuates conspicuously; it ranges from almost-normal to flat black-and-white, and never feels quite right.
There is some enjoyment to be had here, provided you ignore the movie's sporadic attempts at action and intrigue, and bask in the randomness and fairly effective humor instead. One can easily imagine The Spirit making for a wonderful drinking game one day. Until that day, it is nothing more or less than your one and only chance to see Samuel L. Jackson in a Nazi uniform.
Last edited by Yoda; 12-31-08 at 12:28 PM.
Reason: Small factual error. Thanks for catching that, lines!
