The Spirit Review

The 1930's and 40's were rife with new and exciting heroes, including those pulp heroes. Among the most widely recognized of these heroes is the Spirit, a character created by famed comic book artist Will Eisner. The Spirit was a complex, multi-layered character whose adventures were many and varied. He captured the imagination and revolutionized comics as an art form. So what does Frank Miller's 2008 film version give us? A gritty-voiced pretty-boy who spends half the film narrating to a bunch of cats. Nice going, Frank. The eponymous character, played by Gabriel Macht, is a vigilante who is back from the dead, on the trail of the criminal mastermind known only as the Octopus, played by Samuel L. "I've had it with these motherf***ing snakes" Jackson. In the first ten minutes of the movie, we get a mud-spattered confrontation between the two, as the Octopus whacks the Spirit over the head with a toilet seat and loudly proclaims: "Toilets are ALWAYS funny!" These are the sort of lines we can expect from this film, as Miller treats neither the source material nor the audience's expectations with much respect. The film attempts a noir-ish tone, but it is ultimately lost inside the scarce narrative and heavily cartoonish atmosphere. Macht gives a decent performance, and might benefit from a script not written by Mr. Miller, whereas Jackson seems to be having the time of his life, hamming it up beyond even Shatner levels of overacting. One particular sequence near the end seems to evoke a certain style with which we are all familiar. All things considered, it is a fun movie to watch without the use of the higher brain functions. Just make sure you're in the mood for a cartoon, and not an actual film representation of the Spirit.