Anyone who's been reading this site for a while now knows that I've been pretty much expecting The Spirit to suck for quite some time now. Initially, I had high hopes for the film. But as the trailers came out and I read interviews and saw more footage of the film, I began to feel that Frank Miller was confused as to the kind of film he was making. Visually, the film looks very much like Sin City did with it's black and white color palette. However, every line of dialogue from the trailers sounded corny or cliched, like it was almost a parody of a comic book film. I couldn't tell what to make of The Spirit from it's marketing campaign, which is something I usually take to be a bad sign. If a film can't be clear about what it is in its advertisements, chances are it doesn't really know what it is.
Having seen The Spirit now, I can tell you that the film definitely knows for sure what it is. And the answer is it's a campy noir superhero spoof.
I realize that The Spirit is getting horrible reviews just about everywhere. From major newspapers to random bloggers like myself, it seems that everywhere I look I find a negative review of The Spirit. And while I can certainly see where the average movie going public would have a problem with this film, as a geek who grew up reading campy comic books, I can't help but like this film. I've decided that to really be able to enjoy The Spirit, one has to look at it in the right context.
The Spirit is the story of a former cop named Denny Colt who was killed in the line of duty. For reasons unknown to the audience at the beginning of the film, Denny had come back from the dead and now was stronger and faster than before. He could also take a lot of punishment without getting seriously injured. Having been a cop before he died, Denny (who now calls himself The Spirt) decides to work with the city's police commissioner to fight crime and to help out the police department. Along the way we meet The Octopus (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who is the big bad guy in town, and is the Spirit's arch nemesis. We also learn that the Spirit has a fondness for cats and pretty much falls in love with every woman he lays eyes on.
The plot is fairly straightforward, the Spirit is on the trail of the Octopus as he is trying to steal something that will make him immortal, but it's accidentally stolen before he gets there by a thief named Sand Serif (Eva Mendes) who was actually trying to steal something else. Sand and The Spirit go way back, but haven't seen each other in years. The mix up with the stolen goods forces Sand and The Octopus to have to make a trade and The Spirit is caught in the middle.
Now here's where that context I was talking about comes from. I think the reason people are giving the film such bad reviews, and why it's performing so badly in the theaters (it only made $10 million in its opening weekend) is that people are going in expecting to see a different film than what they're getting. This, I will admit, comes from director Frank Miller's choice to have the entire film shot in that Sin City-esque style of stark colors and artificial looking backgrounds. People are seeing that and expecting a darker and more violent film. But that's not what The Spirit is. I understand why Frank Miller made the visual choice he did, but I think in the long run it is going to hurt him. The film looks the way it does because The Spirit is at it's roots a noir crime story. The costumes, the sets, they're all designed to inspire a nostalgic feeling for those old crime movies of the 40's and 50's. At the same time though, the film is also spoofing those old films and is making a tongue-in-cheek homage to the genre that inspired the character.
Does the film have flaws? Yes, it definitely does. Is the visual style conflicting with the script? Yes. Is the acting horrible and over the top? Yes. But that's sort of the point. The film isn't supposed to be taken too seriously. It's a cheesy comic book film. Much in the same way that the old 60's Batman TV show was both horrible and hilarious at the same time, so is The Spirit. If you go into the film just looking for a fun time and don't overthink things, The Spirit can be a fairly enjoyable popcorn movie. If you go in though expecting something dark and gritty like Sin City or the Dark Knight, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
The film has a stellar cast. Gabriel Macht is perfectly cast as the square jawed fast talking superhero The Spirit. All of the women in the film are absolutely gorgeous cookie cutter femme fatale characters, and Sam Jackson delivers one of the hammiest performances he's ever done. To me though, the stand out actor in the bunch was Dan Lauria. You may not know his name, but you'd recognize him if you saw him. He played the dad on The Wonder Years. Anyways, Dan Lauria plays police commissioner Dolan, and he turns in an amazing performance as an old school, tough talking, big city cop. He's absolutely great in the role. This man needs to be given a retro cop TV series to star in. I'd watch it.
While the script does have a lot of problems, there were a number of moments that I absolutely loved in the film. There's a ton of comic book references, including a laugh out loud reference to the tagline of the first Superman Movie "You will believe a man can fly". Ok, so I was the only person in the theater laughing out loud at that line, but that's only because I was probably the only die hard comic book geek in the audience.
This film isn't for everyone, I know that. Almost everyone in the average moviegoing crowds are going to hate it, but that's because they don't get it. Much like the live action Speed Racer movie that came out over the summer, The Spirit is a very stylized, yet incredibly faithful adaptation of the material it is based on. As a result, only a small niche group is going to like it.
I did realize one thing while watching the film. Frank Miller took a movie studio's multi million dollar investment and turned it into what he must dream about at night when he sleeps. The Spirit is very much like watching a two hour version of one of Frank Miller's wet dreams. But looking at the stunningly beautiful women he has in the film (Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Paz Vega, Jaime King) and how gorgeous they look in it, let it never be said that Frank Miller doesn't have amazing taste.
Final Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment