Visually stunning with some superb performances
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Director: Frank Miller
Producer: Deborah Del Prete, Gigi Pritzker, Michael E. Uslan
Screenwriter: Frank Miller
Actors: Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Dan Laura, Paz Vega, Eric Balfour, Scarlett Johansson, Louis Lombardi, Stana Katic, Jaime King
MPAA Rating: PG-13
2008 was a great year for comic book movies. The summer was bookended by two massive hits, both firmly at different ends of the comic book adaptation universe. “Iron Man” was superb entertainment and “The Dark Knight” elevated the genre to a whole new artistic level. In the middle, fans were treated to the fun (and underrated) “The Incredible Hulk.”
After a superb summer, hopes were high for the big-screen adaptation of “The Spirit.” After successfully co-directing several segments in “Sin City,” comic book writer Frank Miller was given free-reign to create a big-screen comic book adaptation. His first choice was to adapt Will Eisner’s graphic novel, “The Spirit” for the big-screen. But “The Spirit” came and went from theaters without with barely a whimper. Swallowed up at Christmas time, the film was deemed a box-office failure and is now ready for audiences to rediscover on Blu-Ray and DVD.
“The Spirit” isn’t necessarily a bad movie. Visually it’s stunning and it’s got some superb performances by a lot of great actors, including the deliciously over-the-top Samuel L. Jackson as the main nemesis, the Octopus. But in a year that showed that comic book films can be both fun and raise the bar in terms of visual appeal and artistic merit, “The Spirit” falls short by comparison.
The real stumbling block for the movie is the script and the story itself. I’m not familiar with the original source material, so I’m not sure how much of this can be chalked up to Miller’s being overly faithful to the original source material. However, the story that we’re presented on-screen just fails to grab you and hold on in the same way that “Dark Knight,” “Iron Man” or “The Incredible Hulk” did. It’s got some inspired moments, but overall you’ll come away wishing there was more to the story than what we get on screen.
Released as a two-disc DVD and Blu-Ray, “The Spirit” comes packed with extras, including a director commentary by Miller, a featurette on Miller and several short documentaries on creating the visual style for the film. All of them are good, though the commentary does show the inherent weaknesses in the quick turnaround time for home theater releases today. Miller gushes about the film at length and while I don’t doubt he’s proud of his work, I still wish we’d had some more time to gain perspective on the film.
The second disc contains a digital download copy of the film and nothing else. A nice addition if you like the film, though I’m not sure how the visuals will hold up on the smaller screens of most digital devices.
