Jason KingThe Spirit ($4-) plus please welcome new writer Dave
February 2nd 2009 10:25
Category: No Category
Please welcome a new writer to Salty Popcorn - Dave. I have worked with Dave for a few years now and his opinions on film completely vary from mine from one moment to the other. We have some definate Margeret and Dave opinions on film and sometimes I have read some of his stuff and not wanted to speak to him for days because it varies so much from my own opinion but then sometimes we see a film and I am writing his opinion on the site. When I removed my head from by behind I realised this is why I love film so much. It's the idividual moments of a film that capture us all in completely different ways. Moments of Titanic can make me burst into spontaneous tears while this same film probably make half of you want to vomit.
In wanting to further Salty Popcorn and bring more film reviews to the site Dave has agreed to join the fold and review the films I don't get to see and no doubt debate me on every film related issue - this should keep me on my toes but hopefully bring some diversity to the site and more reviews to help you choose your films.
The Spirit ($4-) written by Dave
Frank Miller. 52 years old. One of the most respected figures in comic book history; a hero to many; the author and artist of the most celebrated graphic novel of all time: (other than Watchmen of course) The Dark Knight Returns: An amazing perfectly pitched piece of story telling, incredibly deep, absolutely engrossing and precisely drawn about an aging Batman whom comes out of retirement to once again fight crime.
He is a major point of fan boy adulation; the creator of 300. He is also a major point of fan boy contention; also the creator of Sin City, as well as co-director on its cinematic adaptation. Now writing and directing what many say; not this reviewer; but many other critics to very well be one of the worst cinematic tales ever: The Spirit. It is certainly bad, but the worst? Not at all, the bigger shame is that it could have been quite good. So…
Where did it all go wrong?
After a dry spell in the early “noughties” AKA 2000’s: Which Miller brought upon himself with a succession of universally panned projects: notably the sequel to The Dark Knight Returns: The Dark Knight Strikes Again which featured rushed art that is garishly painted; an over crowding of characters and a comedic take that struck against the foundations he had set.
A lot of it doesn’t make sense, and far too often than not the reader is dumbfounded and confused by what they are looking at. Ultimately it is a product of the Miller of the 2000’s. Very much like how The Dark Knight Returns would be a work of the 1980’s/ 1990’s Miller; whose company included 300 and the Sin City stories. Whereas the only company Strikes again has is The Spirit, and it really isn’t that surprising.
I have not read a single issue/strip of the late Will Eisner comic book series The Spirit comes from; but what can be gathered from a quick Google search is that the 1940 – early 1980’s serial is drastically different from the film, and it is not just the cosmetic little differences such as a mobile phone or a laptop or a type of gun, or an item of clothing or…never mind. I suppose Frank Miller has only ‘A’ style now. The style of Sin City: the heavy black and white with splashes of color style.
From the above: ‘quick Google’ search I learned that Eisner’s The Spirit, was a pulp fiction, Dick Tracy like, straightforward detective story, traditionally drawn…in …oh my god…color!?
Maybe it is all that Miller knows what to do? After all it is only his second directing outing, and on Sin City with Robert Rodriguez the main director would have called the shots and all Frank the co-director would have done would be talking to the actors and framing I suppose.
And after all that watching of movie making in a very short amount of time in a single room against a green screen with a high profile cast…it really isn’t that much of a surprise that Miller didn’t deviate at all from what he learnt on the set of that film.
But so far all we have done is establish that The Spirit film is entirely Miller, and resembles Eisner’s work in the name and characters only; and that Miller has lost his marbles; and that he learned all his technical chops from Rodriguez, but these aren’t really negatives in the scheme of things. The Spirit looks great, brilliant in parts, beautifully shot and edited. It’s in focus for the most part right? So something was done right.
But what tanks the spirit is not the apparent rape of Eisner, not at all. It is the extremely over- indulgent and half-baked script and the horrendous acting. Saying that I should probably discuss the plot of the movie somewhat…
The Spirit is this guy: Denny Colt, he has returned from the dead to fight crime…no forget it. I’ll just post up the Wikipedia article regarding it:
“In Central City, rookie cop Denny Colt returns from the dead as the detective known only as the Spirit, to fight crime. After he finds his nemesis, the Octopus, at the Central City mud flats, the femme fatale Sand Saref discovers two chests in a nearby pond. She tries to flee with both chests, but the Octopus shoots at her, snapping the line that connects the two chests together. After a fight with the Spirit, Octopus takes the remaining chest that Saref left behind and escapes with one of his thugs. The Octopus wants the mystical Blood of Heracles in order to become immortal and Sand Saref wants the treasure of the Argonauts, but both people end up with the wrong chest, Sand with the blood and the Octopus with the treasure of the Argonauts.”
That alone is confusing enough.
Throw in an army of pretentiously named henchmen who are cloned in sets of three. (Really pretentiously named: the same actor plays the hundred plus incarnations…the only costume is black pants with black shirt, which emblazoned in big white capital letters across the breast is the henchmen’s name… at one point at the end of the film one is named ‘adios’ and the other ‘amigos’).
Throw in the police chiefs daughter; a doctor who is in love with the Spirit regardless of his womanizing ways. Throw in Scarlet Johansson as ‘Cleavage’ (Not her real name, but might as well be considering her impact and use) as The octopus’s (Samuel L. Jackson) sidekick.
There is an assassin named ‘Plaster of Paris’. Yes. A French assassin named ‘Plaster of Paris’.
And it goes on and on.
There is a random samurai themed sequence.
There is a random Nazi themed sequence…which features a scene so incredibly awful, so incredibly indulgent, that features the line “Something smells dental…dental and Nazi”. It is a scene so bad that I’ve added an extra dollar to the score of the picture; it needs to be seen to believe it.
Add Samuel L. Jackson constantly Y-E-L-L-I-N-G (In the lovable Samuel L Jackson way of course.) unnecessarily about eggs every two minutes.
Example: “I’ve had it up to hear with these damn eggs on my face!” and there are no eggs to be seen.
Example: “I don’t like eggs!!! Brown eggs! Chicken Eggs!!”
Like Samuel L Jackson’s performance the lines are unnecessary and have no reason to be the way they are. Sam Jackson is not bad at all, just all over the place and not restrained by Miller, who undoubtedly was too concerned with the image than whatever the actors were doing. Poor direction = Bad performance…is an equation perfectly valid to blue screen work. The actors had probably had no idea where they were/ what the tone actually was/ who they were etc all because Miller likely didn’t help them get there. That sounds a little unfair, he probably tried his hardest and failed.
After a half an hour of enduring it awfulness, you phase out, what starts out humorous quickly turns sour and headache inducing.
Add the terrible; terrible dialogue, plus the devastatingly bad acting…so bad is everyone in this film (except Gabriel Macht as The Spirit) that it destroys entire scenes.
Scarlet Johansson is so ridiculously awful that all you can hear when she opens her mouth is “What the hell am I doing here, God the lines I am speaking are incredibly lame, I just had a massive argument with Frank Miller before he yelled action that I am still pissed off at him and I hope it shows in my delivery”. Again to be fair, she is only there to look good, and I suppose she does that well.
Eva Mendes fairs better. But she really is only there to look good. The gratuitous ass shots, whilst not unwelcome, do not make a character. All she cares about is her own looks and money; such an incredibly misogynistic take on females from Miller in this flick. There are five women in the picture:
1) Eva Mendes as San Sareef: only cares for money and her looks. She submits to the Spirit.
2) Scarlet Johansson as Cleavage: She plays a set of tits that talk. She submits to the Octopus.
3) Paz Vega as Plaster of Paris: Has two minutes of screen time. Is an assassin and is hired by Octopus to kill Spirit. She pulls out the blades, and all it takes is one smooth line from the Spirit for her to put down the blades and submit to the man.
4) And finally Sarah Paulson as the doctor. She has had her heart broken by the Spirit 4000 times (I think? 3000 maybe) and still she keeps coming back to him, because he is “sexy”. There is no other reason really.
5) Jamie King as the angel: She gives Spirit his life back; presumably because he is a man. She manages to submit to him even in her fifteen seconds of screen time.
So Frank Miller hates women?
Add a mystical angelic being, some notions of immortality and cloning, a little bit of animal torture with some misogynistic-ally written useless women characters and a tiresome predictable plot and you got: The Spirit.
And you know what is surprising of all this?
It’s boring as hell.
All style and no substance: and the greatest shame is if Miller had just one editor…one person to rein him in: then the script could have been salvaged.
If even he had attempted a simple single script change such as revealing the connection between Sareef and The Spirit right at the end of the film instead of the beginning… then we wouldn’t have to spend 100 thus rendered useless scenes waiting for the inevitable.
It really is the mark of a terrible script when we the audience know more than double than what the characters themselves know…And also if someone said, “Hey Frank don’t you think having the characters all dressed as Nazis (OR insert any of the multitude of random ideas in the movie) for no reason is a bad idea?” then maybe it could have been tolerable.
Well, what was good about it?
The cinematography as established above, is gorgeous. The use of color is fantastic, and never should Miller’s visual eye be doubted. It’s his mind we need to worry about.
Gabriel Macht was actually quite good as the titular character, I don’t really know if this is because every body else in the movie was so awful…but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt considering what he had to work with.
The score, although somewhat familiar, worked perfectly. Costumes and all the other technical stuff that no- one really notices were really good too.
The title sequence was pretty cool.
In the end no matter how good technically a film is; it could never make a film great by its own. It is the difference between Sin City and this…one is well written and has a story line and set of characters that are somewhat relatable and identifiable and engrossing… The Spirit has none of the above but some pretty colors… If you must go and see The Spirit, I recommend taking an Ipod and listening to your favorite album whilst watching it, as the film is nice to look at but has no substance at all
The cinematic equivalent of a landscape painting…
So take your Ipod…You could do that…
Or you could get high. Worth $4-
(Salty Popcorn in no way supports the use of illegal substances
)
Great review Dave and Welcome to Salty Popcorn.
In wanting to further Salty Popcorn and bring more film reviews to the site Dave has agreed to join the fold and review the films I don't get to see and no doubt debate me on every film related issue - this should keep me on my toes but hopefully bring some diversity to the site and more reviews to help you choose your films.
The Spirit ($4-) written by Dave
Frank Miller. 52 years old. One of the most respected figures in comic book history; a hero to many; the author and artist of the most celebrated graphic novel of all time: (other than Watchmen of course) The Dark Knight Returns: An amazing perfectly pitched piece of story telling, incredibly deep, absolutely engrossing and precisely drawn about an aging Batman whom comes out of retirement to once again fight crime.
He is a major point of fan boy adulation; the creator of 300. He is also a major point of fan boy contention; also the creator of Sin City, as well as co-director on its cinematic adaptation. Now writing and directing what many say; not this reviewer; but many other critics to very well be one of the worst cinematic tales ever: The Spirit. It is certainly bad, but the worst? Not at all, the bigger shame is that it could have been quite good. So…
Where did it all go wrong?
After a dry spell in the early “noughties” AKA 2000’s: Which Miller brought upon himself with a succession of universally panned projects: notably the sequel to The Dark Knight Returns: The Dark Knight Strikes Again which featured rushed art that is garishly painted; an over crowding of characters and a comedic take that struck against the foundations he had set.
A lot of it doesn’t make sense, and far too often than not the reader is dumbfounded and confused by what they are looking at. Ultimately it is a product of the Miller of the 2000’s. Very much like how The Dark Knight Returns would be a work of the 1980’s/ 1990’s Miller; whose company included 300 and the Sin City stories. Whereas the only company Strikes again has is The Spirit, and it really isn’t that surprising.
I have not read a single issue/strip of the late Will Eisner comic book series The Spirit comes from; but what can be gathered from a quick Google search is that the 1940 – early 1980’s serial is drastically different from the film, and it is not just the cosmetic little differences such as a mobile phone or a laptop or a type of gun, or an item of clothing or…never mind. I suppose Frank Miller has only ‘A’ style now. The style of Sin City: the heavy black and white with splashes of color style.
From the above: ‘quick Google’ search I learned that Eisner’s The Spirit, was a pulp fiction, Dick Tracy like, straightforward detective story, traditionally drawn…in …oh my god…color!?
Maybe it is all that Miller knows what to do? After all it is only his second directing outing, and on Sin City with Robert Rodriguez the main director would have called the shots and all Frank the co-director would have done would be talking to the actors and framing I suppose.
And after all that watching of movie making in a very short amount of time in a single room against a green screen with a high profile cast…it really isn’t that much of a surprise that Miller didn’t deviate at all from what he learnt on the set of that film.
But so far all we have done is establish that The Spirit film is entirely Miller, and resembles Eisner’s work in the name and characters only; and that Miller has lost his marbles; and that he learned all his technical chops from Rodriguez, but these aren’t really negatives in the scheme of things. The Spirit looks great, brilliant in parts, beautifully shot and edited. It’s in focus for the most part right? So something was done right.
But what tanks the spirit is not the apparent rape of Eisner, not at all. It is the extremely over- indulgent and half-baked script and the horrendous acting. Saying that I should probably discuss the plot of the movie somewhat…
The Spirit is this guy: Denny Colt, he has returned from the dead to fight crime…no forget it. I’ll just post up the Wikipedia article regarding it:
“In Central City, rookie cop Denny Colt returns from the dead as the detective known only as the Spirit, to fight crime. After he finds his nemesis, the Octopus, at the Central City mud flats, the femme fatale Sand Saref discovers two chests in a nearby pond. She tries to flee with both chests, but the Octopus shoots at her, snapping the line that connects the two chests together. After a fight with the Spirit, Octopus takes the remaining chest that Saref left behind and escapes with one of his thugs. The Octopus wants the mystical Blood of Heracles in order to become immortal and Sand Saref wants the treasure of the Argonauts, but both people end up with the wrong chest, Sand with the blood and the Octopus with the treasure of the Argonauts.”
That alone is confusing enough.
Throw in an army of pretentiously named henchmen who are cloned in sets of three. (Really pretentiously named: the same actor plays the hundred plus incarnations…the only costume is black pants with black shirt, which emblazoned in big white capital letters across the breast is the henchmen’s name… at one point at the end of the film one is named ‘adios’ and the other ‘amigos’).
Throw in the police chiefs daughter; a doctor who is in love with the Spirit regardless of his womanizing ways. Throw in Scarlet Johansson as ‘Cleavage’ (Not her real name, but might as well be considering her impact and use) as The octopus’s (Samuel L. Jackson) sidekick.
There is an assassin named ‘Plaster of Paris’. Yes. A French assassin named ‘Plaster of Paris’.
And it goes on and on.
There is a random samurai themed sequence.
There is a random Nazi themed sequence…which features a scene so incredibly awful, so incredibly indulgent, that features the line “Something smells dental…dental and Nazi”. It is a scene so bad that I’ve added an extra dollar to the score of the picture; it needs to be seen to believe it.
Add Samuel L. Jackson constantly Y-E-L-L-I-N-G (In the lovable Samuel L Jackson way of course.) unnecessarily about eggs every two minutes.
Example: “I’ve had it up to hear with these damn eggs on my face!” and there are no eggs to be seen.
Example: “I don’t like eggs!!! Brown eggs! Chicken Eggs!!”
Like Samuel L Jackson’s performance the lines are unnecessary and have no reason to be the way they are. Sam Jackson is not bad at all, just all over the place and not restrained by Miller, who undoubtedly was too concerned with the image than whatever the actors were doing. Poor direction = Bad performance…is an equation perfectly valid to blue screen work. The actors had probably had no idea where they were/ what the tone actually was/ who they were etc all because Miller likely didn’t help them get there. That sounds a little unfair, he probably tried his hardest and failed.
After a half an hour of enduring it awfulness, you phase out, what starts out humorous quickly turns sour and headache inducing.
Add the terrible; terrible dialogue, plus the devastatingly bad acting…so bad is everyone in this film (except Gabriel Macht as The Spirit) that it destroys entire scenes.
Scarlet Johansson is so ridiculously awful that all you can hear when she opens her mouth is “What the hell am I doing here, God the lines I am speaking are incredibly lame, I just had a massive argument with Frank Miller before he yelled action that I am still pissed off at him and I hope it shows in my delivery”. Again to be fair, she is only there to look good, and I suppose she does that well.
Eva Mendes fairs better. But she really is only there to look good. The gratuitous ass shots, whilst not unwelcome, do not make a character. All she cares about is her own looks and money; such an incredibly misogynistic take on females from Miller in this flick. There are five women in the picture:
1) Eva Mendes as San Sareef: only cares for money and her looks. She submits to the Spirit.
2) Scarlet Johansson as Cleavage: She plays a set of tits that talk. She submits to the Octopus.
3) Paz Vega as Plaster of Paris: Has two minutes of screen time. Is an assassin and is hired by Octopus to kill Spirit. She pulls out the blades, and all it takes is one smooth line from the Spirit for her to put down the blades and submit to the man.
4) And finally Sarah Paulson as the doctor. She has had her heart broken by the Spirit 4000 times (I think? 3000 maybe) and still she keeps coming back to him, because he is “sexy”. There is no other reason really.
5) Jamie King as the angel: She gives Spirit his life back; presumably because he is a man. She manages to submit to him even in her fifteen seconds of screen time.
So Frank Miller hates women?
Add a mystical angelic being, some notions of immortality and cloning, a little bit of animal torture with some misogynistic-ally written useless women characters and a tiresome predictable plot and you got: The Spirit.
And you know what is surprising of all this?
It’s boring as hell.
All style and no substance: and the greatest shame is if Miller had just one editor…one person to rein him in: then the script could have been salvaged.
If even he had attempted a simple single script change such as revealing the connection between Sareef and The Spirit right at the end of the film instead of the beginning… then we wouldn’t have to spend 100 thus rendered useless scenes waiting for the inevitable.
It really is the mark of a terrible script when we the audience know more than double than what the characters themselves know…And also if someone said, “Hey Frank don’t you think having the characters all dressed as Nazis (OR insert any of the multitude of random ideas in the movie) for no reason is a bad idea?” then maybe it could have been tolerable.
Well, what was good about it?
The cinematography as established above, is gorgeous. The use of color is fantastic, and never should Miller’s visual eye be doubted. It’s his mind we need to worry about.
Gabriel Macht was actually quite good as the titular character, I don’t really know if this is because every body else in the movie was so awful…but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt considering what he had to work with.
The score, although somewhat familiar, worked perfectly. Costumes and all the other technical stuff that no- one really notices were really good too.
The title sequence was pretty cool.
In the end no matter how good technically a film is; it could never make a film great by its own. It is the difference between Sin City and this…one is well written and has a story line and set of characters that are somewhat relatable and identifiable and engrossing… The Spirit has none of the above but some pretty colors… If you must go and see The Spirit, I recommend taking an Ipod and listening to your favorite album whilst watching it, as the film is nice to look at but has no substance at all
The cinematic equivalent of a landscape painting…
So take your Ipod…You could do that…
Or you could get high. Worth $4-
(Salty Popcorn in no way supports the use of illegal substances
)Great review Dave and Welcome to Salty Popcorn.
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It would make a great coffee table book or graphic novel cut out/ Madonna:"Sex" style.
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Plus I was with friends who couldn't stop making fun of it...
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Plus I was with friends who couldn't stop making fun of it...
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The fact that these ass shots added nothing to the character--to which you agree--is exactly why they should be unwelcome. I mean, what if a designer threw a flower into a logo just because it's pretty? I mean, a thoughtful piece of work should have meaning and random shit shouldn't just be thrown in for the sake of being thrown in, such as some hot ass. It is degrading to women, degrading to men (they think you're stupid and have no taste and that all they have to do is throw out a booty shot) and degrading to the film.
I'm not against women being sexed in a movie, but it has to have a meaning, that gratuitous ass shot should be adding to her character.
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Welcome Dave!
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Dianna G - Ditto
Heather - I will leave that one for Dave to answer. I see your point though. I think there has to be a point where the acotr in question says NO to having herself degraded. Like so many female actors that won't go nude they should also see how they are being used and stop it. It's like Tomb Raider I suppose in the fact the character is there purely for eye candy for teenage and older men, and of course the lady loving ladies. But - I could have sworn I said I would leave this for Dave to answer.
Amy - I am positive that was all Miller was trying to do - make his own film off the idea of Sin City. But have NO fear - Sin City 2 is on the way and should be better than this one.
Thanks for all your comments people and for welcoming Dave!
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Thank you every one for the kind words. And thank you Jason for the opportunity. I have been made to feel very accepted. Thanks.
Micelle- Thank you very much, I totally agree if we all agreed and liked the same thing there would be absolutely no point for art.
Morgan- you should still go and see it if you wanted to…just bring your headphones.
Jason- I thought the same about $4.00; but I thought the visuals and effort put into design and score should have been acknowledged somewhat.
Dianna G- I think a movie’s job is to transport you into another place, to instill a mood into you. If it doesn’t do this it fails. But yes Laughing at how stupid and bad it was was impossible not to do at times…but yeah, I don’t believe in “so bad it’s good” sort of mentality. Thanks for your comment It also brings up the question whether or not it was intentionally funny? I don’t think it was…the impression I got was that the dialogue was attempting to be cheeky in the 1930s/40s pulp fiction way…but it failed in trying to make it funny…being so self aware of itself…In an ironic way the film-makers have to treat comedy elements very seriously for it to be funny.
Cheers.
Ps. I love this sort of discussion; its one of the reasons for doing this!
Heather- thank you Heather for noticing. I’m also surprised that other reviewers haven’t brought this in to discussion. I was indeed being very very very tongue in cheek.
It is very disheartening to see women treated this way in film. And whilst I am not a feminist (I think being a feminist bridges the gap between men and women further) I feel tremendously for women.
It’s extreemly sad that women always get pigeonholed, I even dislike how they have to be referred to as ‘actress’…like your sex has anything what so ever to do with your talent. It’s disgusting and something I feel very strongly about…especially being at film school and seeing all these talented women force themselves to make work they don’t really want to (due to sex) because of how society has pigeonholed them.
But the greatest shame of it all, is that there are so many women unlike you whom perpetuate these stereotypes. And why?
In the perfect world (and as much as we would love it, there are too many simple minded people out there for it to ever happen) Men and Women of all different races, should only be referred to as humans. But because of things like religion and politics and economics and whatnot we unfortunately never will reach that level. So it’s up to us to educate the generations that follow us. James Cameron is the PERFECT film-maker in this regard. He writes extremely strong characters for women, and treats them just like people. Ripley in aliens, sarah connor in the terminator films, rose in titanic. He just knows how to do it, unfortunately with feminist films, it just makes me sad to see women perpetuate their own plight, and WORSE is when female film-makers make misogynistic films.
Twilight; a book written by a woman, and a film directed by another woman. And the entire thing just has a young girl submitting to a man for its entire duration. You know, the only woman director I can think of that resonates strongly for women at the moment (Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron definitely not) Is Sofia Coppolla, and would she have a career if her father wasn’t one of the top five film-makers of all time??? It’s just sickening.
This is almost becoming an article in it self. (good idea). But I’ll just leave you on this point for the sake of discussion:
When a woman makes a feministic film she ultimately further separates the gap. But what if she were to make a blockbuster?
Oh and ps. To your statement about women being sexed for a reason. I agree, there is a place, when it is required for a point…but (as I’m pretty sure you agree) in films like the spirit it is purely there for men to look at. Oh and by the way sorry for ranting on a bit too much, I couldn’t help it.
AMY- Thanks for you welcome.
Jason- I hope I answered it above. LOL.
Thanks again everyone for all the kind words and discussion!
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