Film Review: The Spirit (2008)

Pity Will Eisner; Nothing Can Save Frank Miller's Rancid Spirit

Jan 4, 2009 Rob Humanick

Frank Miller can't direct to save a limb in the tonally disjointed Spirit, which features the wasted acting of Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes. 0.5 stars out of 4.

To only say that The Spirit is a mess would be an act of misguided kindness. It's a consistently bad, borderline unwatchable mess from start to finish. Director Frank Miller has come to this project after the (definitely financial; arguably artistic) success of the cinematic adaptations of his own graphic novels Sin City and 300, moving up the creativity ladder in his own adaptation of another's work. Suffice to say, the glove doesn't fit.

A "Sin City" Poseur

As a technological exercise in computer effects, The Spirit sports only a superficial relationship to the styles of those aforementioned films, both works of essential computer animation and green screen effects in which style and substance meet happily in the middle. Sin City may have set the popular standard for this breed of animation (used to drain the color out and replace it with noir-infused blacks, whites and reds), but The Spirit does nothing to hide its outright aping of it, forgoing any style of its own and deliberately changing key elements of the original Will Eisner serial so as to fit into this pre-configured color palate (the titular character originally sported a blue jacket; the film, rather simplistically, settles for black).

A lack of purity in its use of preexisting material, however, is hardly the downfall of Spirit, though such points to an overall dearth of creativity already infecting more substantial components. Some would condemn Robert Rodriguez for translating Sin City's visuals almost completely verbatim from their printed page source material (not unlike the storyboards rendered pre-production for many a film, animated or not) without granting credit to his deft, if spare, cinematics. Visually speaking, nothing sticks in The Spirit, there being no consistency or rhythm to its visual tangents, which splotch about frantically, desperately, like diarrhea spraying about the outside of its porcelain target.

Stylistically Inept

Like Sin City, The Spirit takes place in a strictly imaginary world, one created through mediums and requiring precise emotional triggers and mannered stimulations to operate convincingly. Though it remains unclear whether Frank Miller is simply that clueless in directing real, live actors, or that the performers themselves were simply never kept on a tight enough leash, the effect in practice is one that needs to be seen to be believed. Poor Scarlett Johansson actually gives it something of a shot, while Louis Lombardi deserves an award for actually trying in what may be the most thankless role this side of Y2K.

It's unfortunate that critics have already overused the anti-CGI slang on Lucas' Star Wars prequels, flawed but daring and inventive utilizations of newfound technology. The Spirit wastes more effects work than any film in recent memory, and not a soul to appear on screen seems to know exactly what they're doing for more than two consecutive moments at any given time.

The mind reels that an artist so fine in one medium could prove so inept in another (seriously, there are but few moments in The Spirit that don't make The Phantom Menace look like SAG-worthy material by comparison). Similarly unbelievable is how much mileage Samuel L. Jackson continues to get out of the ghost of Pulp Fiction's Jules Winnfield, notwithstanding the presence of a gold-lined suitcase here as well. Here, he rules over the story as a crime lord named The Octopus, which is of concern only if you're able to muster the energy to care about the plot beyond the fact that it does ultimately come to an end.

Almost So Bad It's Good

Ultimately, The Spirit remains interesting throughout for two reasons: (1) among the many, many bad decisions that made it onto the screen are a few happy accidents (favorite of this writer being a red-infused funeral sequence of contrasting backgrounds and foregrounds), while (2) its status as something of an endless slow-motion train wreck makes it almost fascinating to watch. Somewhere there exists potential for this storyline, that being anywhere but here.

The plot – which is at best a shapeless mess of uninspired and poorly articulated stream-of-consciousness philosophies interspersed with lame superhero squabbling, at worst downright boring – never even gets a chance to defend itself in this wreck of a film. Too late to jump, boys: this ship's already sunk.

The copyright of the article Film Review: The Spirit (2008) in Action Films/Thrillers is owned by Rob Humanick. Permission to republish Film Review: The Spirit (2008) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The Spirit movie poster	Gabriel Macht, bored and clueless, as The Spirit	Louis Lombardi, don't even ask, in The Spirit
Sam Yell Jackson in a highlight from The Spirit	Jackson, Lombardis and an unfortunate Johansson