The Spirit | Joe Zad reviews, Action, Blu-ray | DONNE TEMPO
The Spirit
The Spirit (Lions Gate Home Entertainment, $25.99) Frank Miller is a great comic book creator. Sin City and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns have alone turned him into a legend.
Now, with that bit of reverence firmly in place, may I say Mr. Miller is not a film director nor has he figured out the nuances of screen writing.Taking on the role of director and of screenwriter, Miller sought to create a live action, highly stylized ode to a character created by the father of the graphic novel, Will Eisner.
It is Denny’s ability to retain his human emotions while being somewhat less than truly human (having once been very dead and all) that made The Spirit work then, and now.
Created Mr. Eisner, The Spirit first appeared in 1940 as a seven-page insert into American Sunday newspaper comic sections. Newspaper inserts that enjoyed a weekly circulation of over five-million readers.
The stories ran until 1952, offering stories filled with crime drama, romance, mystery, horror and comedy. They could be gritty and sentimental and Eisner’s ability to bring a graphic, and often exotic look, typical of what was seen in film noir, remains one of the pop culture genres brightest moments.
In the early 1960s, The Spirit returned in comic book form, published by Harvey Comics and Denny Colt has had life in print one way or another, including comic page strips, graphic novels, comic books and a 1987 television movie, for nearly 70 years.
This is clearly pointed out in the documentary style extra features the Blu-ray release of The Spirit offers.
The way I see it, Mr. Miller had two choices in creating this film. One would be to embrace the Sam Raimi flair of the first Spider-Man film or to seek a more artistic film version tapping directly into Mr. Eisner's vision.
Instead, we get the Spirit as drawn by Mr. Miller in his dense brush strokes and then brought to the screen with a watered down tribute to director Robert Rodriquez' magical green screen infused opus of Miller's own Sin City.
It's not the casting choices that cause the problem.
Star Gabriel Macht is pleasant enough as the resurrected police officer Denny Colt, now the masked vigilante protector and The Spirit of Central City.
Samuel L. Jackson chews up the scenery as his nemesis, The Octopus, a mad scientist with a Nazi fetish who relishes encounters with The Spirit so they can beat the tar out of each other.
The plot is just too convoluted and never quite campy enough for the audience to feel part of the shenanigans.
I'm never sure whether to laugh or crunch the vein above my forehead as I wince during the "now look her ya mugs" dialogue.
It tries to be pulp noirish, femme fatale sexy and slapstick comedy but ends up all wrapped in a sludgy mix of mediocrity.
Let’s face it, when Scarlett Johansson, as the Octopus assistant Silken Floss, ends up looking like a piece of cardboard, it's time to thrown in the towel on the script and visual effects and start over.
The goods: Did I mention Frank Miller is a great comic book creator? Also, the film looks spectacular in high definition but it's ashamed most folks won't watch it more than once.
The bads: Will Eisner deserved so much better for his signature character. The Spirit was an every man adventure that caught readers up in the world of crime fighting in the 1940s and Miller's bastardization, and ridiculous level of violence really infects the Spirit legacy.
The mandatory extras: An optional commentary gush fest with Mr. Miller and producer buddy Deborah Del Prete leads the charge. Not enough critical analysis and too much self-adoration don’t help explain this box office bomb.
Next, Mr. Miller looks like Freddie Kruger in a pair of featurettes.
The first, a self analysis of his career and life also touching on some of this favorite creators and a bit of comic book history checking in at 16 minutes
Next, a too short Will Eisner video biography that includes Mr. Miller and words from luminaries such as Neil Adams. We get fifteen minutes for a guy who helped revolutionize the sequential art industry.
Are you kidding me?
Other extras include a look at the green screen effect by the actors and production staff. It is more a marketing piece than useful reference for the fan of the film.
Also, viewers get an alternate demise of the Octopus revealed in storyboards and animatics. Let's call this a pure Miller massacre.
Note: After watching all of the extras, Mr. Miller obviously goes to pained explanations on why his screen adaptation of the Spirit would be more than kosher with his good friend Will Eisner. It's tough to disagree but I read the comics and never felt the character come alive, sorry.
My suggestion is to watch Sin City on Blu-ray and forget this mess ever happened.
Above and beyond: This may sound familiar. The second disc of the set offers the vaulted "Digital Copy," a downloadable version of the film ideal for computers and miniature media players.
Since I didn't like the film in the first place in the gorgeous Blu-ray presentation, I'm certainly not going to want to get the glasses out to watch it on a 3.5-inch iPhone screen.
— Joe Zad