The Spirit

The Spirit
Director: Frank Miller
Stars: Gabriel Macht, Scarlett Johansson
Classification: 14A
Rating: **

Oddly enough, The Spirit reminds me of a cartoon version of James Bond. See, in the same sense that the British spy is an indestructible crime fighter driven largely off the insatiable appetite of women, so too is this comic book icon. In fact, replace 007’s trade-mark martini with a glowing red tie and you might not be able to tell him apart from George Lazenby. Take that as you will.

Based on Will Eisner’s legendary comic strip from the 1940s, a murdered cop (Gabriel Macht) mysteriously returns from death to become a hard-boiled masked crusader named The Spirit who vows to defend his city from criminals like the conspiring megalomaniac Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson).

Brought to life by Frank Miller (Sin City), the artist-turned-filmmaker gives the pulp fiction a slick, stylistic movie treatment that pays homage to the starkness of mid-20th century film noir. Indeed, by giving The Spirit the same effects-heavy comic book look that he and Robert Rodriguez mastered in Sin City, this film is — if nothing else — stunning to watch.

For some however, The Spirit’s stark characters and extreme dialogue will be a campy turn off. After all, there’s no subtlety in a flick that features such lines as “shut up and bleed” and “I’m going to kill you all kinds of dead.”

In the end, the problem with The Spirit is that to make a great film you need more than just a slick cinematographer and a few catchy quips.

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