After Sin City came out in 2005 Frank Miller became well known and 300 certainly elevated his status. And while we all still wait patiently for the sequels of Sin City Frank Miller  gave us the Spirit to entertain us while we wait. Its another adaption of a graphic novel but not by one of his own. Unfortunately this film was a marketing disaster and has pretty much bombed in theaters. A shame when much less interesting and worse movies are still playing earning money.

The plot to the Spirit is well stupid but it is fine since the Spirit never takes itself seriously for a second. Basically Denny Colt is a cop who has returned from the dead to live again and fight crime. His nemesis is the Octopus who is bent on wiping out Central City. Sand Saref also returns from Denny's past as a murderous women.

The rest of the details of the plot are lost somewhere in the vivid colors and ridiculous dialog. The Spirit is a movie whose intentions are never to be taken seriously, it is meant to be laughed at for going so over the top and its sheer bizarreness. Think of the Evil Dead movies or Shoot 'em Up. If you go in expecting a serious movie with coherency then your just out of luck. But while the film may fail for now I have a feeling it will find its place in dvd when people look at it for what it is not what they were expecting. Most people were just expecting another Sin City with its visual style and gritty portrayal. This is not Sin City, Frank Miller just decided to go all out camp and in my opinion it worked.

I can't exactly say the acting is great but I can say the actors must have enjoyed themselves. Gabriel Macht is the Spirit who delivers a good performance. He has a lot of cheesy moments but he does it well while still having some realism to the character. Samuel Jacking is the Octopus and wow was this a turn in acting. He spends most of the film plotting his schemes and fighting the Spirit. It is a great performance that almost redefines over the top villain. Eve Mendes is pretty good as Sand. Its not a great performance but its certainly not bad especially when considering what she has to work with. Everyone does a good job including Scarlett Johanson and Jamie King.

The Visual style is a lot like Sin City, as it uses black and white with vivid colors that blend right in. There is a lot of CG but it still ends up looking good. Basically it looks like a comic book come to life. The results are amazing.

Overall The Spirit is a good movie. It is not great cinema or a classic but for what its worth it is highly entertaining and it never takes itself seriously. Its loaded with cheesy ridiculous lines and just about everything that happens doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it doesn't matter because that was the point of the movie. It gets weird and then just plain bizarre and for some reason it just adds to the brilliance of the movie. There are not enough movies like this, too many movies take themselves too seriously and can never just let go and have fun. Frank Miller really went all out with this flick as he makes it as over the top and zany as he possibly could. Its a shame this did so poor in theaters but that can be blamed on poor marketing, however I'm still surprised at how  much negativity surrounds this film. Sure its not Sin City or even close but that doesn't make it a bad film, and it looks awesome. Not the best comic book adaptation but it might be worth it to go back and discover this movie when it comes out to dvd.

4 stars

Cast

Gabriel Macht - The Spirit

Jamie King - Lorelei Rox

Eva Mendes - Sand Saref



Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: None of the Above
Viewing Method: Studio Screening/Premiere
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing