‘The Spirit’: A Misguided and Muddy Interpretation
- Director: Frank Miller
- Running Time: 108 Minutes
- Rated: PG-13
2008 has been a wonderful and progressive year for comic book/graphic novel adaptations and interpretations to the big screen. They have effectively brought an artistic vision to life and created true film adaptations. However, this transfer is no simple feat and without proper care or guidance, can create an idea that should have spent more time in the oven. The Spirit is unfortunately an embodiment of this. This is Frank Miller’s directorial debut, utilizing Will Eisner’s classic comic as the jumping point, and although the artistic vision is sound and beautiful, the actual film is hurt by a lack of care with the narratives and characters along with inputting too many ideas with no real sense of purpose.
The film follows the Spirit (Gabriel Macht), a hero of Central City whose injuries heal quickly and his charm woos any women he meets. He has secretly been fighting crime with the help of the police chief. Recently, however, he has hit two snags. One is that his nemesis, the Octopus (Samuel Jackson), and partner, Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), have been not only terrorizing the city but also fed the Spirit some interesting notes about his powers. Two is Sand Seref (Eva Mendes), an old flame that became a worldwide thief and mysteriously has come back to the city. With the help of some friends such as Ellen Dolan, the nurse (Sarah Paulson), and being taunted by the Angel of Death, Lorelei (Jaime King), the Spirit has his hands full in his first outing.
The two biggest notable achievements of this film are in the art direction and the overall fun atmosphere from the actors. Most audience members will note that The Spirit’s art style is comparable to Miller’s other work, Sin City, in using the film noir style, black-and-white colors, while inputting animated silhouettes, specific colors that pop out, and graphic novel-like effects. This art style is still gorgeous to view and unique in its implementation. The movie is really at its best when it lets the viewers marvel at an interesting scene that oozes out an immense amount of style, such as the Spirit’s red tie that pops out amongst the black and white, waving on his neck as he runs through the rooftops. Also, there is no denying that all the actors and the zany scenarios reflects a really fun and jovial ambiance whether it is Jackson shooting gigantic guns a-blazing at helicopters and cops to the Spirit wooing the news reporter to the Chief’s daughter. Personally, the scenes between Johansson and Jackson were some of the better scenes of the film because both played off each other in a fun, complementary manner no matter how weird the scene was along with some cleverness amongst the Octopus’ idiotic goons. This helps make scenes enjoyable in what crazy ideas are coming next and the actors’ reactions.
The Spirit falls apart with the majority of its ideas and content however. As much as the film really shows off its style, these artistic and genre choices conflict heavily with the content. A black-and-white film noir style filled with decapitations and suicides makes little sense next to Saturday-morning-style cartoon humor and bouncy, jovial quips. Even though Miller really tries to make this unique combination work and attempts to juxtapose these elements, it never comes full circle and instead is awkward and stilted. Monologues that come off as plausible and workable in film noir become time wasters, dragging the film and being used as silly plot devices, not characterization moments. The confusion of genres also makes it confusing for audience members to whether to laugh or to stay somber as the film progresses on.
Also, as original and unique as the art style may be, it is never consistent, which is important due to Miller trying to get several symbolic messages etched into audiences’ mind along with thematic colors and sounds. Instead, the film goes all over the place trying to stay cool and exciting going from the drab city in one scene to an anime-inspired shogun scene in the next which may look visually interesting but again, emotionally baffling. Surprisingly, this art style even hinders scenes that normally would be fine but come off as out-of-place because of the insistence to stay stylized than make smart decisions, such as actors ‘swimming’ with CG and fans instead of actually being put in water.
The worst part, though, is the script itself. One problem the film runs into is keeping track of too many characters throughout an entire story arc. Perhaps in an episodic format, there would not be as much of a problem, but these characters and their arcs are brought from all directions to keep the audience alert and expected to understand these new characters’ backgrounds, character traits, and plot importance all within a few minutes before having to move onto the next part. Characters like Lorelei feel shoehorned in and although scenes are peppered throughout the film reminding the audience these characters exist, the film never takes a good amount of time to explain why they should even be cared about. Again, much like the art style, characters feel disposable as plot devices rather than any type of hero, villain, or side being to connect to. And perhaps the worst offense of all is that the film never really explains why anyone should care about the Spirit himself. There is no empathy as the origin story is brought up in a minute worth of flashback. As charming as he may seem to the women of the film, he feels like more of an invincible Robin from the Batman series than a main protagonist, and this emotion ultimately feels like the journey is a waste of time; that any pain the hero is feeling is only necessary for the plot to move along. Perhaps all these empathetic moments were saved for the probably inevitable sequel yet how can a film even think about progressing to the next step without anyone cheering (or even jeering) the titular character along?
The Spirit’s biggest hurdle is that it never seeks to put substance behind the style. The art direction and special effects are beautiful with colors that pop out amidst the darkness and some wonderful silhouette moments. However, the narrative is chaotic and messy with the art and effects never really benefiting the story. Even the film’s genre seems completely confused, trying to emulate the grittiness of film noir yet clashing with a cartoon-like atmosphere. There are some exceptions such as fun banter and randomness between Jackson and Johansson and some deeper moments about the Spirit’s background, but perhaps the worst offense is that the audience never really comes to care about the protagonist himself. The Spirit seems like a lot of effort was put into it, but unfortunately, the final product is confusing and tough to digest.
The Wie muses: ** out of *****
[This film releases on Christmas day.]
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It looks pretty spotty based on the trailers, now I’ll stay away from it for sure lol. It seriously looks like they reused the CG from Sin City and slapped Samuel Jackson in there hoping it would fix everything, but then ended up with a “Snakes on a Plane meets Dick Tracy”…