"The Spirit" is the latest in a fairly short string of films written or directed by Frank Miller and in his now well-established comic book style. By describing his films as being in the comic book style I am doing my best to categorise a visual styling which needs to be seen to be understood. Half cartoon and half live action, the most outstanding thing about this style is the way that the colours in the film have been altered from the subtle hues one might expect in real life to the large blocks of inked colours one might find in a comic book. This visual style is great to watch. In "Sin City" it added a level of despair to the grim violence of the terrifying cityscape in which the film was set as well as helping to suspend disbelief.
All well and good. However it's not enough to keep basing films on this.
"The Spirit" tells the story of the eponymous hero, who is - it is never really explained - some kind of undead good guy who runs around the roof-tops of his city putting bad things right. Fair enough for a set up, but that's just about it. There's no real development beyond that as The Spirit fights against a villain (The Octopus) as he searches for some kind of blood of some hero that will make him immortal... (falls asleep). The film almost from scene one falls into the dumb comic book trap of treating the bad guys as insane asylum escapees while the good guys are dark and brooding - and if you're a woman then you'd better be a super-hot vixen, or The Spirit wont care about you!
I like to think I'm not too much of a movie prude, but there's only so much of this I can take. Frank Miller is trying to base an entire film around a visual style and a pile of nonsensical characters without personality, motivation or any decent lines. It's not just the characters that make no sense, the film looks like it has been written in one go without anyone editing the plot. Scenes which should be played seriously look like parodies, scenes which are clearly meant to be funny fall totally flat (Samuel L Jackson and Scarlett Johansson interrogating The Spirit in Nazi outfits - what on earth is that all about?).
I left the cinema not really understanding what I had seen, or in fact why I had bothered given that every review I had read said it was shit. Apparently Miller is currently working on sequels to "Sin City" and "300", please can someone who knows him go over his script before he starts shooting. Otherwise we're going to end up with yet more style over substance.
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