The Spirit

[Farmer Reil]

Surprised there's no thread on this yet, as it came out last week in the US and opens today over here. A film by the same dude that did 300 and Sin City, whose name escapes me at the moment, based on a comic book I haven't read. The trailer looks fantastic, so I'm going to check it out soon. Anyone else seen it? Is it as awesome as it looks?

[Maxx]

Frank Miller.

Problem seems to arise from the fact that its a FILM by the AUTHOR of Sin City and 300. From what I've heard the direction is just abysmal. I read it was the cinematic equivilent of being raped.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

It's OK. The direction certainly isn't good, and some of the dialogue and exposition are just awful. But it's not a bad film by any means, just don't expect to emotionally invest or begin to give a damn about any of the characters for a single second. Gabriel Macht is generally good with the odd hiccup, but Samuel L. Jackson is entertaining. Then again, you'll know that going in.

[MyKILLv2.0]

....it was the cinematic equivilent of being raped.

Not exactly the type of review i was hoping to read when I was told I had to go watch this movie tonight.

[GhostMachine]

Almost every review I've read about it has been bad. And if you knew anything about the actual comic strip by Will Eisner, you'd want Frank Miller lynched for doing this movie.

[TGC]

Yeah but it was called Frank Miller's The Spirit sadly, not Will Esiner's The Spirit. Miller isn't a director first of all, and they never should have allowed him to touch a character like The Spirit secondly. It's like allowing Eli Roth to direct The Care Bears Live Action Film, you just KNOW it's not going to work or be loyal to the subject matter. If nthing else, this will pretty much ensure that outside of helping on Sin City Miller won't be touching any other movies for a long time, at least not on marketable franchise characters that anyone cares about.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Almost every review I've read about it has been bad. And if you knew anything about the actual comic strip by Will Eisner, you'd want Frank Miller lynched for doing this movie.

Can I ask why? I mean, I don't overly like the movie, but it sounds like you decided it was going to suck before it came out.

I'm not familiar with the comic 'Spirit', beyond literally four strips I've read, so I'm just going on what the movie alone was like, which was.....OK.

[Jimmy]

I thought it was alright. I had higher expectations, for some reason and it fell short. While everything felt stylish, I never really got behind any of the characters. I'm not sure how they wanted to show The Spirit, because after his first scene with The Octapus I was slightly underwhelmed. I personally thought it was alright, but it left a lot to be desired.

[GhostMachine]

Almost every review I've read about it has been bad. And if you knew anything about the actual comic strip by Will Eisner, you'd want Frank Miller lynched for doing this movie.

Can I ask why? I mean, I don't overly like the movie, but it sounds like you decided it was going to suck before it came out.

I'm not familiar with the comic 'Spirit', beyond literally four strips I've read, so I'm just going on what the movie alone was like, which was.....OK.

I will admit that when I heard Frank Miller was involved I was afraid he would 300\Sin City-ize it, which is precisely what he did. But I didn't have any opinion about whether it would suck or not before that....until I saw pics of Sam Jackson as the Octopus, because some of his outfits are idiotic and so are the 4-barrelled guns. When the character appeared in the original comics he was either shown in shadow or in disguise and sometimes only his gloves (purple with 3 yellow rectangles on the back) were visible, and the character is more or less an evil version of the Spirit. I hope the movie at least has Sam Jackson's face turn out to be a disguise.....

The big problem is that Will Eisner who created the Spirit is considered a legend - they even have a very prestigious award named after him - and the Spirit is considered a classic strip. We've already had one bad Spirit movie (a tv movie made back in....I want to say the late 80s?....starring Sam Jones (yeah, the guy who played Flash Gordon in the cult classic film that Queen did the theme for)) and we didn't need another. Every review I've read for the film has been bad.

Hopefully it won't make enough money to justify a sequel and eventually someone will make a Spirit movie closer (pardon the pun) in spirit to Eisner's version of the character.

Miller needs to stay the fuck away from doing movies that don't feature his own creations, apparantly.

[K]

it was pretty much the worst thing ive ever seen. I#ve never read the comics, never heard of the spirit before, don't know who will eisner is so I have no rabid fanboy loyalty to the cause. It was just shit.

[gunnar hendershow]

My friend told me that he walked out on the movie it was that bad. He said the acting and directing were abysmal. There were some good actors in it as well (Jackson, Johansson), but Miller's so bad at directing that I'm guessing he gave them absolutely terrible lines.

[K]

If I wasn't with three other people I'd have walked out as well, I later found out they all hated it as much as I did and would have happily walked out with me at any moment.

[GhostMachine]

Well, if you've never heard of the Spirit before or just found the movie to be horrible, I do urge you to try and find some of the old comic strips and read them. They're fairly good stuff, and Eisner was a genius.

DC Comics did a Spirit series recently (not sure if its still going on or not) with Darwyn Cooke on the art, and I was told by some people who read it that it was pretty good, but the classic Eisner stuff was groundbreaking for its time. If you're a fan of Jim Steranko at all, you can tell Eisner was a big influence on his artwork style.

P.S. I hope 10-15 years down the road someone gives another Spirit movie a try that's closer to Eisner's vision and it has a scene where a guy named Will is beating the snot out of someone named Frank or Miller.

Edited January 4, 2009 by GhostMachine

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Well, if you've never heard of the Spirit before or just found the movie to be horrible, I do urge you to try and find some of the old comic strips and read them. They're fairly good stuff, and Eisner was a genius.

DC Comics did a Spirit series recently (not sure if its still going on or not) with Darwyn Cooke on the art, and I was told by some people who read it that it was pretty good, but the classic Eisner stuff was groundbreaking for its time. If you're a fan of Jim Steranko at all, you can tell Eisner was a big influence on his artwork style.

P.S. I hope 10-15 years down the road someone gives another Spirit movie a try that's closer to Eisner's vision and it has a scene where a guy named Will is beating the snot out of someone named Frank or Miller.

I am considering getting an 'Essential Spirit' sort of book that came out recently, I liked the four strips I read and from the movie you can tell the character has a LOT of potential to be awesome, a lot lot more chance to be awesome than he gets in the film. Plus, Eisner was a genius so I should check more of his stuff out anyway.

[K]

Spoiler: Click here to view

So people who read these comics... Um, apparently The Spirit doesn't have super powers in the comic? Why then is he invincible in the movie? That's kind of a swerve isn't it?

[GhostMachine]

Spoiler: Click here to view

So people who read these comics... Um, apparently The Spirit doesn't have super powers in the comic? Why then is he invincible in the movie? That's kind of a swerve isn't it?

Because Miller pretty much shit all over the concept and 300\Sin City-ized it. The Spirit is just a normal guy (more or less) who fights with his fists. His name comes from the fact that he was believed to be dead but wasn't and abandoned his true identity - there's nothing supernatural about him.

[TheReaper316]

I dont' read comics, so I dont really care how true it was the the comic. Id never even heard of The Spirit before I saw the trailer at the theater. I thought it was good. Its a lot like Sin City in the way it looks, but thats about it. I didnt like the lead actor, thought the characters were dull in comparison to Sin City, and the story wasnt as cool as Sin City but it is a definate B+ effort in making something like it on the side. It has some cool shit in it.