Review of The Spirit (2008) by Steven H — 06 Apr 2012

Let me start by saying, I was looking forward to this since I saw the first trailer. The style and action looked really cool, and the story looked like fun as well. I had never actually read the original comics mind you, but even after the slamming it got when it first came out, I was still interested. I finally rented it and gave it a watch.

And I got to say, this movie was actually pretty funny. I was surprised how much it made me laugh, the only problem is, I don't think most of that comedy was intentional. So if you don't know the story, to the Spirit, I'll sum it up real quick. A former rookie cop was killed but brought back to life, and now fights with the police as an "immortal" superhero. Pretty good set up I know, and it leads to one or two kind of cool scenes. But the rest of the execution is so sloppy, so tired, and feels so unexperienced, you'd think a teenager was directing his own fan fiction. This movie has absolutely no idea what tone it's trying to put across. At some moments it's dark and tragic and at others it's ridiculous. Particularly with the main villain, the Octopus (played by Samuel Jackson), who is easily the most over the top character I have seen in any superhero film. He frequently makes references to eggs for some reason I don't know,and he's changing outfits from a samurai, to a Nazi, to-hell I don't even know what he was in the climax. He also has these obnoxious sidekicks that feel like Igor meets the Three Stooges, I'd much rather not go into them.

The rest of the story is O.K I guess, and the characters aren't as horrible as I think most reviews proclaimed them to be. But even that has weird moments, for one scene actually has the Spirit dangling from a building with his pants down. At this point I'm thinking "movie do you even know what you want to be at this point." I just have to say how disappointed I am because I really saw potential in this. But I guess that's what happens when good premises meet pissy poor executions.