So I will start off by acknowledging the fact that I am most assuredly one of very few people in this world who is going to write a positive review for this movie. By all means, I am not going to declare this movie the best comic based movie of all time, because it isn't. Not even close. BUT I simply want to defend this movie as entertaining and artistic. I am not going to lie, I did leave the theatre thinking "Wow, that was ridiculous." BUT I also laughed out loud many times during the movie and loved the way it was filmed. I am going to start this review by addressing the latter.
The cinematography in The Spirit combined two things: stylized action reminiscient of a graphic novel and film noir. Awesome. For those of you who do not know what film noir is, I will give you a crash course. Film noir. It's that dramatic, low budget, black and white detective movie style that became popular in the 1940s. You know, the fedoras, new york accents, charming detectives, and blonde bombshells in bright red lipstick. Well The Spirit was filmed in this style with a couple of quirks though. Now add the graphic novelesque action and sound effects to the mix. The Spirit's red tie was intensified through digital coloring so it looked like it was painted on him. The whites and blacks in the film also were intensified to look like pages from a graphic novel. It's kind of hard to explain, but trust me, it looked cool and made me feel like I was reading a graphic novel. In one of the opening fight sequences, The Spirit was beating up on The Octopus and because of the over dramatic sound effects, I could envision the implied large, jagged bubbles with the words THWACK and CRUNCH written in them. And when the Spirit went off on his monologues, I could see the lines of all caps text sprawled across a page marred with colorful images before me.
The humor in The Spirit was weird, yes. But it was hilarious. Eisner and Miller said themselves that they wanted to make the movie funny. Scarlet Johansson's character was possible the strangest, but she was so matter of fact that it was hilarious. And a lot of the dialogue was just plain old ridiculous, but it was meant to be ridiculous. It's not like Miller was trying to create a thought provoking movie with depth to it. It's not like he thought he was writing a serious script and it ended up being a ridiculous one. It was meant to be ridiculous. I believe the simplicity of the plot for this movie was rectified by the wacky humor.
And now the rest of this review is going to be a direct response to another negative review I found online. Here is the link to it: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/24/DDH414SVMC.DTL
I am going to directly address each of the "problems" this person pointed out, so it will make more sense if you read it.
Response to Problem No. 148: The Spirit's costume is rad. Super rad. You don't need a kevlar and titanium dipped fiber suit like Batman to be intense. The red tie was sexy. And the simple mask humanized the Spirit. I liked the simple outfit.
Response to Problem No. 111: Samuel L. Jackson is amazing. End of story. I mean yeah, he was acting like himself, but I liked his take on the Octopus. His meniacle insanity brought a new edge to the character. I mean he killed a kitten. Some of the worst super villains don't possess the adequate level of evilness to kill an innocent kitten named Muffin.
Response to Problem No. 110: As I said before, the dialogue was so ridiculous that it was hilarious. "There's nothing I like better than kicking your ass ... except maybe eggs." Are you kidding me? That is a sweet line! AND a whole other section of this movie's dialogue is being ignored: the Spirit's monologues about the city. These are where some of the only true substance in the movie can be found. When the Spirit talks about his city as if it were his woman, it is the only time we see true human emotions from the Spirit. And these monologues make up for some of the just plain old ridiculous lines.
Response to Problem No. 75: Ok first of all, the Spirit was NOT a misogynist. On the contrary, he LOVES women...all of them unfortunately. But I don't have a problem with him jumping from woman to woman. I mean James Bond does that. And does anyone ridicule James Bond for doing so? I didn't think so.
Response to Problem No. 34: These were the "quirks" I was talking about earlier. The use of a Nokia picture camera in a film noir styled movie was funny. It was not some mistake that they included it. It was on purpose. It was funny people, F-U-N-N-Y. Sheesh.
Response to Problem No. 5: This movie was never trying to be another Sin City. An R-rating is not required for interesting action sequences. There was still plenty of violence in this movie. It was just super stylized and dramatic, not like the graphic violence of 300 and Sin City. The blood was insanely red, completely fake looking. And a lot of the fight sequences were shown as shadows against a brick wall background. It's because they were trying to mimic the look of a graphic novel, as I said before.
So this concludes my review of The Spirit. Here is the point I am trying to make: No, this movie does not have a complex plot or any philosophical themes behind it like Dark Knight, Sin City, and Batman Begins. BUT what this movie did have was unique cinematography inspired by graphic novels and film noir and an insanely quirky sense of humor that will [hopefully] have you laughing out loud. Just go see it for yourself. Trust me. The critics are not always right.
(Unless the critic in question is me. I am always right.)
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