Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

The Spirit (2008)

Director: Frank Miller

Time Out rating

Average user rating

31 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

For all the grumbling about the state of modern cinema, Hollywood tends to get it right a fair percentage of the time: however crass, noisy and infantile the average blockbuster may be, they also tend to be entertaining, escapist and efficient. But every once in a while a genuine turkey escapes the coop, bereft of charm or wit, utterly lacking in technical prowess, integrity or intelligence. ‘The Spirit’ is such a film.

Adapting from his mentor Will Eisner’s much loved superhero strip, writer-director Frank Miller flies solo for the first time following his debut partnering Robert Rodriguez on the crude, overhyped fanboy favourite ‘Sin City’. ‘The Spirit’ is clearly cut from the same cloth, utilising the same headache-inducing, ripped-from-the-page graphic style and employing a similar cast of grim heroes, outrageous supervillains and scantily clad, largely interchangeable women.

The story, such as it is, unfolds in the battered urban landscape of Central City, where the eponymous indestructible crimefighter (unremarkable newcomer Gabriel Macht) and his jocular nemesis The Octopus (Samuel L Jackson) struggle for possession of a vase containing the blood of Greek demigod Hercules, abetted by a parade of hapless lovelies: Eva Mendes’s self absorbed jewel thief Sand Serif, Sarah Paulson’s drab nice girl Ellen and Scarlett Johanssen in a thankless, irrelevant role as evil sidekick Silken Floss.

Miller directs with stunning ineptitude, shooting entire scenes in close-up without ever establishing the location, flashing from monochrome to colour without warning or reason, keeping his action sequences as perfunctory as possible to make way for endless, excruciating scenes of exposition. His work as a writer is, if anything, even worse, throwing in pretentious, portentous voiceovers, hammy gold-tinted flashbacks and repeated attempts at slapstick and comic wordplay which, without exception, fall deadeningly flat. A few scenes – such as the one where Jackson and Johanssen dress up as Nazis for no apparent reason – threaten to spill over into outright drug-induced camp, but Miller lacks the imagination to take them beyond simply bizarre and annoying.

In the world of graphic novels, Frank Miller is king: a fine visual storyteller with an unimpeachable canon. Let’s hope ‘The Spirit’ puts an end to his moviemaking ambitions before that impressive record is irrevocably besmirched.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 2002, Jan 1-7, 2009

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

Graphic said...

Posted on May 02 2011 14:49 I know I am way late with this response, but I only just saw The Spirit. Come on guys, how can anyone who has an open mind find this film a sad depiction of a graphic novel? You have completely missed the point and I recommend you stick with watching mainstream movies that push no technical boundaries. You poor bastards. Better luck next life. Btw my IQ is well over 131.

Report as inappropriate
phil said...

Posted on Jan 03 2010 16:34 I do enjoy watching film adaptations of comics even when they seem to meander through the plots and focus to heavily on the style of shots however I couldn't have expected this film to be as bad as it was. I've sat through bad films just to find out what happens in the end but eventually all I could do was laugh halfway through the film at the irrelevant screenplay. Word of Wisdom, if it's a couple of people who can't even watch the film through then maybe it's them, if it's near everyone then it's probably you. By the way I did not know that you had to be intelligent to enjoy watching a crap film. It's a boring feature length monologue crammed with poor special effects and over stylised camera shots.

Report as inappropriate
KR said...

Posted on Sep 14 2009 01:25 I watched this movie last night, and today went online reading reviews in hopes that somebody else could offer an explanation as to why this movie was ever made. It was so perfectly completely bad that there wasn't even anything laughable or interesting in it's badness. That's a feat - I'm having trouble thinking of any other movie that was so blandly poor that was all bad without crossing into the territory of "good-bad". What an utter waste of time.

Report as inappropriate
henry said...

Posted on May 24 2009 09:27 I have admired Scarlett Johansson - her natural beauty and her natural charisma, but her role in this movie actually made her seem repugnant. Ha! Impossible you say, thats how bad the movie was!

Report as inappropriate
Erik said...

Posted on Mar 15 2009 01:49 The biggest shame here is that the movie shared nothing in common with the Will Eisner strip in terms of style, tone, look and feel, and violence level. The original strips are well written, designed and constructed. They were subtle and the COLOR DESIGN was great too. I guess I am getting on in years. But I cringe to think that a generation of young people out there think of this movie as the main representation of "The Spirit." What a mess. Why was Frank Miller chosen for this project?

Report as inappropriate
Apple Pie said...

Posted on Jan 19 2009 16:26 this is the worst flim i have every seen. it was on unbearable in fact i walk out on the movie thats how bad it was.

Report as inappropriate
Purple_vodka said...

Posted on Jan 17 2009 18:56 i really enjoyed the film.
however i can see its not for everyone.
in short its not your classic superhero movie.
expect a comic book, on screen. basically,
thats why its cheesy somtimes, and perhaps things don't
go in convention with "normal" films.
if you go in with a compleatly open mind, you may not find it horrific.
but as i say, clearly not everyones cup of tea.

Report as inappropriate
Tom said...

Posted on Jan 14 2009 18:36 Word of Wisdom,
I have an IQ of 131, I still found this film complete drivel. Role Models is a film that doesnt pretend to be anything other than silly toilet humour, and doesn't try to be anything else, its funny at parts but lets face it, is never going to win an oscsar. This film however has no redeeming features, apart from when it ends. That was a relief.
I can only guess that the people positive comment work for the films production/promotion team.

Report as inappropriate
pacman said...

Posted on Jan 14 2009 18:01 this film is awesome best film ever hands down

Report as inappropriate
and he said...

Posted on Jan 14 2009 16:20 ..."crude, overhyped fanboy favourite ‘Sin City’" - Ha, what!? Sin City is anything but crude. I think the technical grand prize at Cannes knocks that one on the head Mr Huddlestone!

Report as inappropriate
Word of Wisdom said...

Posted on Jan 14 2009 15:37 Firstly, this film is GREAT! Secondly I advise most people not to go watch it. If you are the sort of person that watches the usual Yanky cinema we have to put up with this film is not for you. If you like comics, manga or graphic novels then you will appreciate the conversion done in this film. Miller, as with Sin City, has translated the rules and tricks used in drawn media to the big screen perfectly. If you know these rules then you will enjoy every cheesy line or seemingly endless close up. The action that seems to stop to give you individual cells is a new trick not used as much in Sin City, at times it is almost like reading a comic. To the doubters go watch Role Models or something more suited to your IQ.

Report as inappropriate
neil vitty said...

Posted on Jan 12 2009 09:59 i have never walked out of a film , i now wish i had made this one the first. if someone offers to pay you to sit through this bizarre rubbish politely decline.

Report as inappropriate
Ace Magee said...

Posted on Jan 09 2009 16:33 What a load of crap. The most pointless storyline ever. Has Samuel L Jackson done anything half decent since pulp fiction? As an Independant cinema Fact should not put s***e like this on without watching it first, I cant believe anyone watched it and then thought it would be a good idea to screen it. Dont go and see this film.

Report as inappropriate
howard smith said...

Posted on Jan 09 2009 15:20 A further example of the decline of western civilization. A load of awful performances in front of blue screen. Supposed to be visually stunning but just dull. Story - what story? Was this supposed to be a deconstruction of all things superhero? Failed on every level. Every level. The nazi scene was tasteless and incomprehensible. Why have a semi-naked belly dancer to chop him up? Why did she free him then try to kill him? Why did this get a cinema release? Why is frank Miller stomping all over his hard earned reputation with this bilge? It was like watching surviving Gazza - having someone squash precious memories. An abomination.

Report as inappropriate
Roy said...

Posted on Jan 09 2009 11:37 I've seldom been so disappointed in a film, I like Miller, I enjoyed Sin City, I like Eisners Spirit I even enjoyed the old Spirit movie, so I was really hyped up for this and crushingly disappointed in it.
It suffers from many of the same fault as the Warren Beattie Dick Tracy movie, bad plot, bad script, every woman loves the hero a concentration on gimmicky visuals and prosphetics, early on in the film Frank Miller has his head pulled off and thrown at the Spirit, this seems entirely reasonable for inflicting this on us the sad thing is this franchise has and still has so much untapped potential but this isn't going to excite anyone to explore it.

Report as inappropriate