CinePhillyist Reviews... The Spirit

The reason why the Octopus and the Spirit can take so much punishment and keep going is revealed later on in the film (it has to do with an unlikely serum the Octopus has developed). For now, they just seem like ridiculous cartoon characters. They yell horribly stupid dialogue at one another (such as the Spirit's painful one-liner, "I'm gonna kill you all kinds of dead"), and then at some point mutually agree that the fight is over and that it's time for them each to go their separate ways. It's stupid and it makes no sense.

It soon comes out that Sand Saref is actually an old flame of the Spirit's, back when he was a young kid named Denny Colt. They had a falling out over a tragic incident in their past, and now she's on the wrong side of the law. She realizes she was double-crossed by a man named Donenfeld; the businessman sold the location of those ancient relics to both her and the Octopus. She goes to his office and, while in the midst of talking him into committing suicide by revealing that she's going to make public the fact that he's a child molester (a throwaway subplot that I really didn't need), she sits on his photocopier and makes a copy of her ass. It's supposed to be funny, I guess, but it's just incomprehensibly juvenile, like so much of the rest of the film. In fact, it's the setup for an even more juvenile sequence, where the Spirit takes the photocopy of her ass and shows it to the bellhops at all the city's ritziest hotels, asking them if they've seen this ass before. And one of them has, of course; he directs the Spirit to her suite. Just ridiculous.

Later, the Spirit is captured by his enemy and tied to a chair. The room, for no particular reason, is done up in a Nazi motif, with a giant swastika on one wall, a huge picture of Hitler on the other, and a big sculpture of the Nazi eagle insignia up on a pedestal. The Octopus and his assistant Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) enter dressed in full Nazi regalia, and then the Octopus sets about performing a positively ancient villain cliche: explaining to the Spirit his entire evil plan in great detail. Admittedly, many better films have used this device, but this is a modern film in a modern age. We're all aware of that gag, and we've all seen it done a million times. Why in God's name would you write it into your movie? And what in holy hell is the deal with the Nazi stuff? There's no reason for it at all. It's not explained and hardly mentioned. It seems to be here merely to shock and appall. There's a similar scene earlier where the background and costumes are done up in a Japanese samurai motif, with just as little explanation. What is the point of it all? What is the point of this movie? It's hard to say.

One of the most basic things about The Octopus' character in the comics is that you never see his face. It's a neat little gimmick. He's the lord of all crime, and is always sitting back in the shadows, his tentacles in everything, but his own identity is never actually revealed. Sort of an early version of Keyser Soze. (If you're interested in seeing the Octopus' origin story from the comics, check this out.) But not only do you see his face in the film, you see it in almost every scene, starting with the very first one. Miller claims to really respect Eisner and his work, but it's very hard to tell that from this travesty of a film, which has little or nothing to do with Eisner's smart, funny, creative, ground-breaking comic book (although I did appreciate the little reference to the famous Spirit comic strip "Ten Minutes" contained in a line spoken by Commissioner Dolan: "What's ten minutes in a man's life?").

The Octopus has a bunch of happy, brainless, clone slaves working for him, each played by Louis Lombardi, and each wearing a black shirt with a word that ends in "os" written in white on the front (Pathos, Logos, Adios, Amigos, etc.). These characters are, again, here for no obvious reason. They're just weird for weird's sake. They're not surreal in an interesting way, but surreal in a confusing, "why is this here?" kind of way. The scene in which Octopus is playing with a failed, experimental version of one of the clones (which is a tiny Louis Lombardi head grafted onto a full-sized human foot) is puzzling and flabbergasting in the same way. As is the way the Octopus is constantly using sayings and metaphors that involve eggs. There's no explanation for it. It doesn't make sense. It's not funny. It's just weird and annoying.

The Spirit is apparently supposed to be a likable hero, but he comes off as a pompous, incompetent fool. Gabriel Macht is quite terrible in the part—although admittedly the cheesy narration and cringe-worthy dialogue he was given to read left him with little to work with. Some of the worst bits are his constant speeches about his city and how much he loves his city and how his city always provides for him and blah, blah, blah. The problem is, we don't care about his city. We never get much of a feel for it. It's just a bunch of flat black buildings that might as well be made out of cardboard.

I also find it odd and confusing that we get to hear part of the Spirit's origin, but not the entire thing. We know he was shot, died, and then came back to life. But we don't where he was when he was shot, what he was doing, or who shot him. Why leave this important information out?

The Spirit is also supposed to be irresistible to women, but why exactly is a mystery. The man treats his girlfriend like dirt. Her name is Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), and she's a noble, selfless doctor whose father is the police commissioner. She sees the Spirit flirt with other women constantly, but knows he needs her and will always come back to her. In a scene near the end of the film, she sees him make out with another woman, and then, seconds later, flirt with yet another woman right in front of her. She calls him a bastard... but then smiles. It's a disgusting scene. At this point you'd much prefer her to knee him in the crotch and walk away.

And I'd like to knee this movie in the crotch for wasting an hour and a half of my life. But I'd settle for kneeing Frank Miller in the crotch. He used to be an incredible writer and artist. I really don't know what's happened to him recently. The Spirit ends with the clear suggestion that the story will continue in some future film. Let's all hope there's a Christmas miracle and the film does so terribly at the box office that there will never, ever be a sequel.

Image via Internet Movie Poster Awards Gallery