The Spirit Plot Overview
In this adaptation of Will Eisner's comic book classic from the 1940's, The Spirit tells the tale of the everlasting battle between The Spirit (Gabriel Macht), formerly a police detective named Denny Colt, who has returned from the dead, and his arch-nemesis The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), a colorful yet ruthless megalomaniac hellbent on spreading terror and destruction to Central City, the setting for this film.
Both seemingly unstoppable yet filled with an insatiable need to get at each others' throats, The Spirit and The Octopus duke it out, whether it be laying death traps to capture the masked detective, or said hero foiling the latest villainous plot, they always seem to rise from the ashes, and healing their wounds, awaiting the next round.
When The Octopus seeks a long lost treasure which could give him immortality, he lays the final plans to stop his opponent once and for all, that is unless The Spirit can put a stop to him before he levels the city he has come to regard as his friend and protector.
The Spirit Overall Analysis
Where to begin? Though the well edited trailers for this film showed the story to have promise, this movie turned out to be nothing but a mess of bad dialogue, convoluted subplots, and possibly deliberate overacting, with the wrong result altogether. If anything, it's as if the viewer is expecting a high caliber product, if only to be watching the equivalent of a badly directed high school play.
The actors try their best to enjoy the exaggerated characters they are asked to inhabit, however they either did an excellent job hiding their humiliation, or really didn't realize the level of schlock they were involved in from the get-go.
Frank Miller, a very popular and well established graphic novel name, should have given more thought as to the decision to fly solo in the directorial chair this time around, as the movies based on his work in recent times (such as Sin City and 300) were directed by others with input by the author himself. In the case of Sin City, Miller had the benefit of collaborating with Robert Rodriguez, by then a well known helmer with several visually interesting flicks under his belt.
Granted, the film is visually astounding, at par with other green-screen based works by Miller. However, no amount of visual pizzazz can ever be a valid substitute for a complete lack of story coherence. Audiences are likely to see this film in years to come, if only to use it as an excuse to throw heckling parties if only to laugh at its silliness.
The Cast of The Spirit
Samuel L. Jackson, always the scene stealer in this movie, seems to be the only one realizing the ludicrousness of the project, and so he throws himself into his character with gusto. Never wearing the same over-the-top outfit in the film, he's like a kid who's found dad's wardrobe, and plays dress-up for kicks.
The ever vampish Scarlett Johannson plays Silken Floss, Octopus' criminal associate, a femme fatale with intelligence to match. Her performance in The Spirit feels forced, as if she realized too late that she was stuck in the role.
Eva Mendes appears to be in the same boat, as Sand Saref, a childhood friend of Denny Colt's, who turned to crime in order to quench her taste for the bling. The rest of the supporting cast, which include Sarah Paulson (as Dr. Ellen Dolan, a love interest), Stana Katic (as an overeager police rookie) and Paz Vega as a lethal French seductress with a taste for knives, all could have been ignored or left out of the script altogether, given what little there was to start with.
As for the actor who plays the Spirit himself, Gabriel Macht comes off as a milquetoast version of a Batman gone soft, sort of a character who inspired himself from Adam West more than Michael Keaton. His conversations with the camera are hokey and dumb, and don't help maintain a fictitious element whatsoever.
It is unlikely this film will see the possibility of a sequel, in any case it will be long remembered as a study in directorial inexperience. Very much like how Stephen King decided to direct on of his own stories which became Maximum Overdrive, Frank Miller better stick to the pens and the typewriter, and let seasoned professionals handle his otherwise decent written works.
3.5 out of 10 for sheer nonsense, awful directing, but another fun performance by Samuel L. Jackson
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