Based on the classic comic strip by the equally classic Will Eisner, The Spirit is the result when a young rookie cop named Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) is murdered in cold blood. He’s mysteriously reborn as an avenging masked crime fighter with amazing healing powers. You can shoot him, stab him--hell, you can even throw him out a window, but the Spirit always bounces back with a smile, usually for the ladies. And as if fighting crime in Central City isn’t hard enough, the Spirit must also content with his arch enemy, The Octopus. This malevolent marvel has got designs on a special vase that contains the blood of none other than Hercules himself. The Octopus thinks that by drinking this blood, it will make him an immortal ruler of the world.
Written and directed by another comics legend, Frank Miller, The Spirit is a rollicking good time. Done in a super campy, over the top film noir style that looks just like a moving comic book, The Spirit perfectly captures the fun loving essence of the original comic strips with plenty of humor, and a great cast. Gabriel Macht is perfectly cast as the title hero; with his jut-jaw physique and comic timing, he greatly embodies the bold, heroic figure of the 1930s and 1940s pulp books that the Spirit was clearly based on. And Samuel L. Jackson looks like he’s having a ball playing The Octopus, and his mood is infectious.
Jackson’s Octopus is so gloriously over the top with his bizarre outfits and weird fetish for eggs (he’s obsessed with eggs to the point that he keeps talking about them) that he fondly recalls for me the outlandish villains from the 1960s Batman TV show. The Spirit overall plays like an episode from the Adam West series--in a very good way--and it shows quite eloquently that this particular storytelling style can work if it’s done right. The rest of the cast is also very good, including Scarlet Johansson as Silken Floss, The Octopus’ right hand woman, who helps him just because it’s fun. Eva Mendes is superb as Sand Saref, who’s basically the Catwoman to The Spirit’s Batman. And Sara Paulson is perfect as Ellen Dolan, the Spirit’s long suffering girlfriend.
Shot entirely in green-screen, much like Miller’s Sin City and 300 were, The
Spirit is not bound to conventional filmmaking, thus freeing it to show us some
truly dazzling visuals that are a delight to view in the High Def Blu-Ray format,
which this film was clearly made for. But it’s just plain fun in either home
video format. It’s unfortunate that The Spirit was a huge flop at the box office.
And, having watched and enjoyed this movie immensely, I can’t for the life of me
understand why it bombed. As much as I loved The Dark Knight, and think it’s a
masterpiece, sometimes you just need to lighten up and have fun, even in
superhero movies. That’s the Spirit.
--SF
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