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It appears that when the flesh is weak the Spirit (Gabriel
Macht)is always willing whether it comes to fighting criminals
like The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) or babes (every woman
in the film). Based on Will Eisner classic creation Frank
Miller’s (yep, the same Frank Miller who co-directed “Sin
City” created the graphic novels "300", "The Dark Knight"
and one of the most influential American graphic novelist
in the latter half of the 20th century) film version of
“The Spirit” wears its influence on its sleeve and is proud
of it. Miller managed to put the visual style of Eisner’s
work on the screen as well as the narrative form in adapting
this popular hero’s saga to the screen. ***
Miller has taken “The Spirit” and turned it into a
visually dazzling humorous and campy valentine to Eisner’s
brilliant storytelling skills. There are those that criticized
Miller’s film because of the campy humor and over-the-top
performances at the heart of the film but frankly I think
this is the only way to tell the story in the film medium.
As much as I loved “Sin City” it’s hardboiled film noir
tone worked for the film but it was a tad humorless in places.
Miller uses the same approach to “The Spirit” that he used
when he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez on “Sin City”
from the often spare backgrounds to the monochromatic (well,
except for The Spirit’s red tie) and down the narration
that often dominates film noir’s like. I’ll tell you up
front that I liked “The Spirit” every silly, campy and over-the-top
moment of the film. ***
The Spirit “comes to life” when beat cop "Danny
Coyle" played by (Gabriel Macht) is murdered. When
he mysteriously comes back from the dead he decides to devote
his life to fighting crime and he also discovers that he’s
virtually indestructible rapidly healing no matter what
the injury. The Spirit takes on the city’s mad scientist
villain The Octopus (Jackson)who wants to become immortal
and take over the world in that order. When Sand Saref (Eva
Mendes) gains control of the one object that The Octopus
MUST have a vase filled with the blood of Heracles that
will make him immortal. ---
Image & Sound:
The discussion of the transfer is almost academic because
the film is so stylized looking. Is the skin of the actresses
supposed to look like she’s made of plastic? Probably but
if not that means that the images are occasionally suffering
from too much noise reduction. Since there is often plenty
of detail on the skin of other actors I can only assume
that’s the intent of Miller here. I didn’t see “The Spirit”
in theaters so my take on it is that it probably was supposed
to look like this. The images are crisp looking, sharp and
with nice detail. Blacks are rich and deep and the colors
when they do appear pop. ***
The audio sounds terrific. Dialog is nice and clear
throughout the film. Whenever action scenes appear we hear
quite a bit of surround activity in this DTS-HD audio mix.
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