The Spirit Review by Mr. Zeddemore
This film is bad.While that may be seen as a catchy opening and a neat ‘hook’ to draw people into the review, it’s also true. This is one of the craziest things I have ever had the ‘pleasure’ of sitting through at the cinema. Usually you start a review with some generic form of ‘can this film be as bad/good/whatever as people are saying’ and then go from there. I start a lot of reviews that way, and will probably be starting most of the comic-book movie reviews I do that way.
But I can’t start this review that way.
The film is one of the oddest things I’ve seen put into the mainstream since Oceans Twelve, where everything was given a French New Wave tint and it seemed equal parts experiment and jolly boys outing rather than a coherent and stylistic follow-up to an acknowledged crowd pleaser. This film is just insane.
I should warn you that I deal in spoilers from this point forward. Nothing gigantic, even though the film isn’t really complex and gives up any cards it may have had early on. That being said, I do believe some respect must be shown for those of you who’ve been reading since ‘this is bad’, but still harbour thoughts of going to see this batshit insane film at the cinema knowing as little as possible.
If that is you, stop reading now.
SPOILER ALERT
The film reaches its nadir when The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) and Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), the two of them clad in Nazi uniforms, are tormenting The Spirit (Gabriel Macht), who has been tied to a chair. In the background, near Silken Floss, is a picture of Hitler. That’s crazy enough, and bizarre enough, but when you add in that the scene also contains a French woman named Plaster Of Paris (played by Spanish actress Paz Vega), you’ve circled into nonsensical land.
END SPOILER ALERT
One of the main problems with the film is that it seems to be throwing as many weird things towards you at the same time (Japanese, Nazi and Russian imagery are all used for The Octopus) that you can’t really latch onto anything. It’s a bombardment of stylistic moments that Miller creates without tying them together with anything particularly memorable or a well-crafted structure.
Normally, you’d expect that from the lead character. The sad part is that Gabriel Macht is trying to ground the crazy, but his character is paper-thin and certainly not strong enough for a two hour and eight minute film. I think the best way to go into that is to say that he’d be able to support a forty minute self-contained story within a larger film without a problem; and probably even a ninety minute film. Asking the character to be enough for this film seems to be more than he can handle, a fact Miller unintentionally notes by continually having the character monologue, run over buildings and suffer through embarrassing attempts at comic-relief that do nothing but force the story to drag on further.
The problem of time and structure extends to the fact that The Octopus gets as much screen time as The Spirit. Samuel L. Jackson is actually pretty good in this piece, bringing a good level of ham to the performance that rises above the dreadful character he’s got to deal with and the rather poor choices of props, costumes and haircuts he’s forced to endure. They seem to be going down the mad scientist route, but even a small amount of Wikipedia filled research on the original character reveals that isn’t the character at all – in fact, they seem to have merged his character with another character from the original piece. It’s not a crime to do that, but it does serve to make the adaptation slightly odd in that the original piece isn’t a complex labyrinth of story that needs to be condensed, and then extended (a regular contradiction if there ever was one, how this simple story was condensed to be made even simpler and then extended past a natural length is beyond me.)
Another problem is the tone, both the colour palette and how events are played. The cinematography by Bill Pope is excellent, yet you do feel like he’s been asked to do several different things that don’t mesh. We veer from ripping off Sin City in black and white to full colour and several shades in-between. The reason Sin City worked (at the time, anyway) was because they kept it consistent for the most part. Here, it’s whatever Miller felt like on any given day, which is a disappointment because if he stuck to one style chances are it wouldn’t feel so needlessly experimental.
This segues us into the tone of the piece in terms of the events and how they are portrayed. It’s a problematic area for the film because we hop from comedy to drama and OTT action so often that you don’t get a chance to breathe. We get Sarah Paulson bringing her own brand of humanity to the role of Ellen that no-one else does, which contrasts sharply with Macht playing The Spirit deadpan and Samuel L. Jackson hamming it up. None of the characters feel like they belong in the same world, a shared tone and style of performance not existing. There can be a case argued that this is done in other films such as Die Hard, but if you’ll watch that film you’ll notice Rickman and Willis may have different styles yet they’re believable in the same world. Here, when Macht and Paulson share a scene it doesn’t mesh with anything else. That’s a shame, because Paulson is terrific and deserved a better film.
Interestingly, if I were to rate the most fitting performance for the world
I’d go with Scarlett Johansson. I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of her work to date, but I think here she’s perfect for the material. She plays it aloof, not with a knowing smirk like Jackson but like she’s a fully breathing character. There’s complexity there, but she’s not out to steal the show or go for an Oscar. It’s similar to how Gwyneth Paltrow played Pepper Potts, as a real person in a crazy world. They won’t get lots of raves for their acting, but the two of them serve to ground the piece without feeling outside the material.
I think the biggest flaw I can find with this movie is that Miller clearly doesn’t get The Spirit – but what he does get is something like a Batman or a Daredevil. You get the sense that he wants to go make movies for them. Instead, he’s making this. Rumour has it he turned this down, only to take it up again. I wish he’d stuck with that option, and I wish he’d be in the running for a Daredevil film.
While he’s not a terrific director of actors or consistency (yet), you do get the sense that he could be better with the right material. This film is him throwing everything but the kitchen sink (which, at one point, he does have someone throw) at the screen and creating moments rather than a solid piece. It’s just bad, a collection of random things that make little sense and a bunch of performances that don’t really add up to anything of value.
Oh, and a shot of a bare assed Eva Mendes. Which you’d think would save the film, but no. She was pretty good in the film come to think of it. In the end I don’t think this is a good film, or a ‘so bad it’s good’ film. It’s just a mess.
I give it two batshits out of a possible five
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