The Spirit

The Spirit 

This movie came out way back in 2008 and it shows.  I re-watched this train wreck again for some reason and the movie is worse than I remember.  The movie is extremely bad because of Frank Miller and his ego.  Miller got the idea to direct a movie solo due to his co-directing work on Sin City.  It didn’t turn out well for him or the movie.   

Frank Miller has become a joke of late, but there was a time when the comic book industry viewed Miller as the groundbreaker of the medium.  While I am not the biggest fan of some of his earlier work, I respected him for bringing darker and serious elements to the industry.  Over the years, Miller has morphed into an old bitter and out of touch old man.   

Not since Battlefield Earth, have I seen a plot so mishandled and nonsensical. What exactly is the story about? The short stories of the Sin City movies work and have some narrative connections, it is a jumbled mess for the Spirit. This falls into the modern mishandling of narrative storytelling that has plagued Miller's modern work. Look at All-Star Batman and Robin or DKR2. 

Miller’s nonsense floats and encompasses all of Will Eisner's within The Spirit.  From what I can tell, The Spirit is nothing like the manner that Frank portrays it here.  It has all of Miller’s stink all over it.   

-Eggs: For some stupid reason, the Octopus is obsessed with eggs. So much so that he mentions it in half the scenes he is in. It's not funny and makes no sense. Why, Frank, why? 

-Edger Clones (Louis Lombardi): Remember the dumpy guy from 24? Well, you get him in mutable roles playing stupid clones. It's supposed to be a running joke but it is neither funny or pays off in any meaningful way. We even get a mutant version that never made me laugh either. 

-The mixture of time periods: One of the few things working in the movie's favor is that movie is a mixture of varying time periods. People dress and talk like them from the mid-30s-40s, but the world has modern things like computers and laptops. They even have smartphones. Like Batman the Animated Series, it works on that level. 

-Sin City 2.1: It tries hard to be a Sin City clone, but falls on its face with the dialogue. Frank Miller's nonsense dialogue just doesn't work here compared to the other movie.

-Visually, the movie is pretty: Like Sin City and 300, it has a comic book style that hits its mark.  I like how the movie has a vague black and white visual, but not as limiting as Sin City.   

-The narration is not the key:  Why does the Spirit narrate about the city in a sexual manner? Does he want to make love to his city? Take it out for a drink? This narrator dialogue is headshaking terrible. 

-Scarlett Johansson and Sam Jackson together again for the first time?   In the Marvel Universe, these two will be working on the same team in the form of Shield.  Sam Jackson will become her boss again in that comic universe as well.  That is one of the few neat things from this movie.   

-Sarah Paulson :  Yeah, she is in this as one of three love interest for Mr. Spirit.  She is completely lost in the mix and poorly written.   

Frank Miller is to completely blame for this piece of shit. It is nearly unwatchable. Unlike Freddie Got Fingered or Battlefield Earth, you can't hate-watch the damn movie due to it being so boring. Miller's ego got the best of him and his worse failings were put on display with The Spirit. Damn, this is a bad movie. There is a reason this was Miller's last solo directing role. Like Tim Burton, the movie is more interested in being pretty than having substance to it. 

Grade: D+