Review of The Spirit (1987) by Con L — 10 May 2010

This movie seems like it's lost amid LA Confidential, Dick Tracy, and Sin City. The narrative voice doesn't really connect to begin with, and the movie doesn't give us sufficient reason to come in and lose ourselves in it.

And the dialogue is unintentionally (maybe?) hilarious because of how awful it is. The characters seem jumbled, shoehorned in because they have to be but not developed to any real extent. The Spirit himself seems like he wants to be Dwight McCarthy, Marv, and Hartigan from Sin City all wrapped up into one, but he can't pull it off, and as such the movie never quite gets there.

Samuel L. Jackson is the only redeeming quality, delivering even the worst dialogue with his trademark panache and making it sound like solid gold. The scene where he is a Nazi is priceless, and is almost worth it by itself.

But overalll, a disappointment that seemed to squander its potential.