|
 What
to expect when one of the world’s premiere comic book artists tries his
hand at directing a comic book movie? Frank Miller has been hailed as
single-handedly reviving not only the Batman franchise, but the entire
comic book industry with his 1986 epic, The Dark Knight Returns. His
brutal, gritty look at the DC legend gave both the Caped Crusader and
his mien a new legitimacy, attracting a fresh batch of comic book
virgins and the attention of Hollywood. It was Miller’s darker edge
that gave both Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan their rougher, more
realistic take on the figure a generation had only known for chasing
Caesar Romero in between Pop-Art Whams and Pows and doing the Batusi
with Julie Newmar. Miller also created the graphic novel masterpiece,
300, which in 2006 was made into a small low-budget flick that few
people saw … We kid.
Having flirted
with moviemaking previously - Miller wrote 1990’s Robocop 2, executive
produced 300 and both wrote and co-directed 2005’s comic book movie
landmark, Sin City. It’s the last of these achievements that seems to
have affected much of Miller’s latest filmmaking effort, The Spirit.
Clearly, Miller has enough movie studio cred to have made a film based
one of his favourites, a 1940 Will Eisner comic where the hero is
basically a guy in a suit, red necktie, long coat and fedora hiding his
identity behind a tiny black mask. No capes!
No structure,
no interest, no discipline and no hope of a good movie, either. Rarely
has there been a larger pile of expensive self-indulgence hurled into
the lap of the moviegoer than The Spirit. Truly, a film only a die-hard
comic book fan (-
or a very bored masochist)
could love. The Spirit’s only attractions are giving audiences a chance
to watch Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus chew scenery like never before
(!) and the gorgeous female cast, including Eva Mendes, vamping it up in
a stunning 1940’s-inspired wardrobe that would have had Joan Crawford
scratching her eyes out (-
first, The Women, now this. What
is Mendes’ Crawford connection?)
and Scarlett Johansson playing dress-up in a succession of campy,
over-the-top costumes. Jackson and Johansson sport a different wacky
outfit for every single scene: Here’s Sam and his Scarlett, playing
Samurai and Geisha, now Sam is a pimp in chinchilla and eye shadow,
while Scarlett looks like the secretary for the Symbionese Liberation
Army. Hey, look, they’re torturing a kitten while dressed as Nazi
officers. Yeah, you get it. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a film
that substituted costume changes for an plot; were it not The Spirit’s
original intention, it ends up to be the most interesting thing in the
film.
The idea of the
regular Joe being a superhero kind of goes out the window when we
realise that The Spirit does actually have some standard superhero
powers, including nigh-invulnerability. Denny Colt was once a
respected, responsible cop on the beat in crime ridden Central City.
Killed in the line of duty, Colt becomes the guinea pig of The Octopus,
a mad scientist, with a hankering to take over the world – or at Least
Central City’s costume shops – and is resurrected, becoming The Spirit.
The Octopus and The Spirit are locked in a battle for soul of the city.
On the sidelines is Colt’s former paramour-turned-jewelry thief, Sand
Serif {Mendes},
who may or may not be on The Spirit’s side, as well as the Sweet Polly
Purebread of the operation, Dr. Ellen Dolan {Sarah
Paulson}, who patches
up The Spirit’s many boo-boo’s. There’s some jibberish about a jar full
of the blood of Herakles (-
that’s Hercules when he’s at
home)
that will give The Octopus immortality, but it hardly matters.
From the first
viewing of The Spirit’s trailer at last April’s New York Comic Con, I
was unmoved. It seemed clearly a Sin City ripoff with a not very
interesting hero. I could not have been more correct. Like Sin City,
The Spirit is a parade of green-screen effects filmed on the same black
backgrounds as its inspiration. There is plenty of comic book cool
stuff to look at; the aforementioned costumes, rich, textural film noir
production values and zippy pulp fiction atmosphere, but unlike Sin
City, The Spirit has neither a compelling story (-
or collection of stories)
at its spine, nor a strong enough director to whip all the pretty
scenery and effects into a cohesive narrative.
Besides Sam
Jackson making all-you-can-eat of every scene he’s in, the rest of the
cast seems to be having a lot of fun camping it up. Gorgeous lead
Gabriel Macht valiantly gives his heroic all as The Spirit and tries
hard to breathe life into some patently corny lines. I did enjoy seeing
a comic book hero with a libido; the former Mr. Colt seem to have no
trouble taking amorous rewards for his good deeds when willingly
offered. Eva Mendes’ and Scarlett Johansson’s molls revel in being
eye-candy as long as they get what they want by fair means or foul.
Those small victories cannot compensate for the rest of the film’s
gaping inadequacies. In the end, The Spirit is an aesthetically lovely,
self-indulgent, disjointed mess of a film about a superhero, who, like
this movie, isn’t all that super - but the costumes are really nice.
~ The Lady Miz
Diva
December 24th,
2008
PS:
Click here to read LMD's chat
with director Frank Miller and stars Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes,
Scarlett Johansson & Sarah Paulson.
© 2006-2008 The Diva
Review.com |
