The Spirit

The Spirit, Frank Miller’s solo attempt at replicating the success of Sin City, comes off as an unmitigated disaster virtually from its opening frames, as the movie’s unpleasant visual sensibilities are exacerbated by Miller’s relentless reliance on some of the hoariest cliches that the crime genre has to offer (ie there’s even an angry captain, for crying out loud). The filmmaker’s inability to engage the viewer on any level at any time proves instrumental in The Spirit‘s downfall, with the ceaseless tough-guy dialogue, as well as the mind-numbing, downright laughable narration (eg “My city, I cannot deny her. My city screams. She is my mother. She is my lover.”), lending the proceedings the feel of a third-rate film noir knockoff. The movie, which follows enigmatic superhero The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) as he battles a nefarious villain known as The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), has been infused with paper-thin characters whose blandness is compounded by the almost uniformly ineffective performances, with the shamelessly over-the-top work of supporting actors Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, and Eva Mendes counterbalanced by Macht’s flat, hopelessly uncharismatic turn as the mysterious title figure. There’s little doubt, however, that The Spirit‘s most ostentatious failing lies in its garish visuals, as Miller’s inability to tell an interesting story effectively heightens the inherently unappealing nature of the movie’s look – thus proving that Robert Rodriguez surely deserves the bulk of kudos for Sin City‘s undeniable success (although, to be fair, Rodriguez himself would’ve been hard-pressed to breathe life into Miller’s extraordinarily hackneyed screenplay). The end result is a cinematic experiment that’s about as enthralling as a poorly-conceived student film, and it’s subsequently impossible not to imagine (and hope) that it marks the end of Miller’s directorial career.

* out of ****