Review of The Spirit (1987) by Brett W — 24 Jul 2011
Poorly written, poorly directed, visually incongruent... just all around bad. Sin City got away with hyper-noir, tongue in cheek campyness because it first and foremost had a cast that lent weighty credibility to even the most absurd scenarios. Sin City was also based primarily on the familiar crime and passion elements of film noir, so while even when certain characters reached seemingly bizarre proportions they were still at the core simply caricatures of demons found in real life.
The Spirit accomplishes none of this and it all hinges on the fact that the core concept doesn't work. Frank Miller tries to splash a thick, modern gloss of cheeky, sex ridden slapstick over the silver age-antique that is Will Eisner's Spirit. So, not only do we not know or care about any of the characters or the world they live in, we can't even laugh at the absurdity of any situation because there's nothing to compare or contrast against. It's a bunch of stupid characters being stupid with nothing at stake.
Everything Dick Tracy and Sin City did right, this film does wrong. Wherin those movies we felt like we were reading a comic book, The Spirit is a bunch of actors wandering around in front of a green screen.
This review of The Spirit (1987) was written by Brett W on 24 Jul 2011.
The Spirit has generally received mixed reviews.
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