Latex Movie Review: The Spirit

One of the biggest complaints by comic book fans is that every time there is a film instead of closely adapting the comic book the film studios always insist on campy tongue-in-cheek scripts that are heavy on the corny comedy. This began to change with Tim Burton's Batman ( 1989 ) which although still fraught with campy gags was dark like the original comic book. Warner Brothers embracing of Burton's darker Batman was thanks to comic book artist and writer Frank Miller who's limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was a huge success due to the publicity it gained for it's dark portrayal of the Batman character. You would think then that when Miller was signed to direct the film adaption of The Spirit that there would be no camp. Not the case. The Spirit is almost completely campy. But lets be fair about it. The original Spirit comic series written by Will Eisner was conceived as a funny strip. An unusual experiment in comic book history had some newspapers including a pull out comic book instead of the usual color comics pages. Instead of working on six four panel strips and one full color page a week Eisner wrote a full seven page comic. And since the comic book section of newspapers like The Chicago Sun would be replacing the usual slapstick strips found in the Sunday Comics section Eisner was free to experiment with crossing humor with costume hero.

The Spirit had a 12 year run ending in 1952, and from there the comics were reprinted wit a few new Spirit stories being written by Eisner every now and then. In the '70s director William Friedkin purchased the film rights and Harlan Ellison was hired to write the script. That movie was never made. Others attempted to make a Spirit movie, each time promising Eisner ( who retained ownership of the character ) that their adaption would be faithful to the source material, but all ending up aborted during pre-production. Ironically it was not until after Eisner died that production on a Spirit movie finally began. It actually began at Will Eisner's memorial service when producer Michael Uslan ran into Eisner's friend Frank Miller who's film Sin City had just been released a month earlier. Uslan had the film rights but no studio interested. He asked Miller if he wanted to write and direct an adaption of The Spirit. After initially turning Uslan down Miller decided that the only way to make sure a Spirit movie was a faithful adaption of the comic book was if he did it himself. Now with Miller on board Uslan was able to get the backing for the project from Lionsgate and the project took off.

The finished product is in nearly the same style as Sin City, shot entirely against a greenscreen with all the digital sets being added later so that the scenes would look close to what was found on the pages of a comic book. While the source material took place in the 1940s ( the years the comic was written ) Uslan insisted on the story taking place in modern times. This did not stop Miller from giving his characters 1940's vintage costumes or having them drive around in '40s modeled vehicles, but still allowing characters to have such modern conveniences as digital video recorders. Miller does deviate from the source material a bit, combining characters from the original comic. Villainess Sand Saref was given much of the characteristics and back story of villainess P'Gell. And The Spirit's arch enemy called The Octopus is combined with the back story of Dr. Cobra, changing the origin of the Spirit. A huge omission is The Spirit's sidekick Ebony White, a stereotype black character who accompanied The Spirit on most of his adventures, omitted by Miller most likely because of the character's political incorrectness. The loss of the only African American character from the book was made up by casting Samuel L Jackson as The Octopus. In the original comic The Octopus was a master of disguises and his real face was never shown, so his exact ethnicity was never known. But in Miller's movie the costumes The Octopus wears do not cover his face. Another change, the Octopus being given the same powers as The Spirit, being able to heal from any wound. In every encounter between The Octopus and The Spirit, it is The Octopus who dominates the fights. Early in the movie when The Octopus sees that The Spirit is investigating one of his crime scenes, he returns enthusiastically looking for a fight and immediately begins pummeling The Spirit into unconsciousness. Samuel L Jackson steals the movie with his over the top performance as The Octopus. Keeping pace with Jackson is his army of cloned henchmen all played by Louis Lombardi, all played as happy morons. Scarlett Johansson completes the triad of villains playing Silken Floss, the assistant of The Octopus. She is given very little to do in the movie but makes the best of what scenes she has. Eva Mendes is not as memorable playing femme fatale Sand Saref. Aside from her looks, which Miller uses to great effect, her character is flat. Gabriel Macht's performance as The Spirit is perhaps one of the best in the genre of superheroes. While most actors insist on playing masked men with gruff raspy voices, Macht plays The Spirit as an everyman who just happens to have extraordinary powers.

The big problem with Miller's adaption of The Spirit is his insistence on using the same digital technology used in the movie Sin City. This does not allow for the action sequences than films shot using traditional techniques. And since we have already seen this style of film making in Sin City the novelty has long worn off by the time The Spirit was released. Miller does add some nice touches to the movie, specifically flashback scenes showing Sand Saref and the Spirit's alter identity Denny Colt as teenagers and their ill fated romance. But otherwise Miller's script is one you would expect from a low budget television movie that relied more on scenes with lots of dialog than action sequences. It is a harmless little movie that is entertaining enough while you are watching it but will be quickly forgotten. And you would expect more from this movie based on the talent that worked on it. The Spirit comes off as a lesser version of Sin City, a shame as the source deserved something more original.

THE SCENE:
You only have to wait 7 minutes to see the film's best scene. It is Eva Mendes in a wet suit rising up out of the water and aiming a gun at a police detective. This scene lasts 13 seconds, and when the Spirit shows up she is gone. Fortunately the wounded police detective tells The Spirit about the beautiful girl he was ogling at, and the movie goes into a one minute flashback at 8 minutes into the movie. Here we see the same incident from a different angle, then follow Eva as she goes back into the water to retrieve submerged crates while being shot at by The Octopus. She reemerges and tells a male accomplice who was hit in the arm by one of the bullets to "shut up and bleed" when he suggests they leave immediately now that The Octopus is after them. Miller makes these scenes even sexier by not giving Eva's character an aqualung, so that each time she emerges from the water she is gasping for air. Not much to report in the rest of the movie. At 12 minutes Scarlett Johansson is wearing a black outfit that consists of leather skirt, wool turtleneck, leather jacket, leather gloves, leather bootlets and leather beret, but the way the scene is cut you never get a good enough look at the whole outfit. At 47 minutes Ava wears a tight white dress with some white sequins. At 48 minutes Scarlett is wearing an outfit that exposes her black bra underneath which has vinyl or satin trim along the top. And at 1 hour 27 minutes both Scarlett and Eva are wearing outfits that include leather boots and gloves.