The usher looked at my ticket, blinked, looked back at me, back down at the ticket, back at me, and said, “The Spirit? Really?” Then he rolled his eyes, shrugged in a “it takes all kinds” manner and tore my ticket.
As bad omens go, the only thing that could have been worse would have been discovering Mike Nelson, Crow, and Tom Servo sitting in the front row.
The thing with Frank Miller is this: He’s a power hitter. He takes huge swings for the fences every time out. If he connects, he drives it out of the park. The problem with power hitters is that they strike out. A lot. And when they do, it can be monumental to watch. They don’t just stand there and watch a ball whiz by on the outside corner with their bat on their shoulder. No, they take huge hacks at it, swinging from the heels, and when they miss, they spin around, their legs twisted in knots and crossed at the ankles, and sometimes even fall flat on their ášš.
That’s pretty much what we’ve got here. A huge swing and a miss.
The truth is that, if you come at it from the point of view of viewing it as a surrealist comedy, it can be pretty entertaining. I’m going to focus on the positive aspects because (a) I am friends with most of the producers on the film, and (b) everyone else is dumping on Frank, so why pile on?
A) It’s the best film that Paul Levitz has ever appeared in. During one point as the Spirit is plummeting, Paul is visible in the crowd and is heard to say, “You’ll believe a man can’t fly.” Seriously. I’m not kidding. Go run Paul’s name through IMDB if you don’t believe me.
B) All the shots remained clearly in focus.
C) Everyone’s diction was really clear, and no one bumped into any furniture.
D) I could follow the action sequences, which is more than I can say for “Quantum of Solace.”
E) The Frank Miller illustrations over the final credits were pretty good. In fact, if this had been a four-issue Frank Miller comic book series instead of a movie, I think people would have liked it a lot better.
Here’s the main problem: The film is like “Ðìçk Tracy” on crack. The thing that made “Ðìçk Tracy”…well, not work, really, but work as much as it did…was, first, the vividness of the color palette and second, Al Pacino contrasted with Warren Beatty. Scenery chewer versus a guy who was little more than scenery himself. Here we have on the one hand Samuel Jackson, who apparently wanted to out-lousy-movie his “Pulp Fiction” co-star John Travolta. He failed; despite what others have said, “The Spirit” is NOT as bad as “Battlefield Earth.” On the other hand, we have Gabriel Macht as the Spirit, a character who desperately needed to have been played by Bruce Campbell. In fact, there’s nothing in this film that wouldn’t have been 110% better if Campbell had been in the lead, because he can carry off the balancing act that I think Frank was going for.
“The Spirit” is at war with itself: A color scheme mostly of muted black and white (a flashback of Denny Colt lying dead of gunshot wounds makes it look like he’s covered with pigeon crap rather than blood) is in conflict with the over-the-top script which is in conflict with the director’s vision (bad news since the director wrote the script) which is in conflict with the actors (bad news since the director directed them.) So you get a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be aside from a Frank Miller film. Lines that are intended to be funny fall flat; lines that are intended to be serious prompt laughs. Cloned disposable henchmen with their names on their t-shirts, apparently having wandered in from the 1960s “Batman” series, keep showing up in sequences that I suspect only Frank thought were amusing. In the sparsely attended hall where I saw it, the film garnered at various times reactions ranging from outright guffaws to incredulous shouts of “WHAT?” in reaction to some particularly absurd moment. Something tells me that isn’t what Frank Miller was going for. The truth is that Frank was given his head on this film, and now critics are handing it to him. Is it deserved? To quote “Unforgiven,” deserves has nothin’ to do with it.
Ultimately, is “The Spirit” THAT bad? No. It’s just THAT not good.
PAD
• 
Andy E. Nystrom “I realize I’m in the minority, and, again I can see why others wouldn’t like it.”
Even if I end up disagreeing w/you after I see the movie, you’ll still have my utmost respect for expressing your opinion without being a dìçk about it. Thanks for having the courage to speak up and represent “the loyal opposition,” and doing so in a way that was worth reading. 🙂
For example, I missed “Catwoman,” a movie Bill Mulligan just raves about.
That’s a dirty lie and you know it, Myers! I was talking about “Catwomen Of The Moon.” Get it right.
3-D version or regular? Makes a difference.
I just saw the movie myself on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I agree that it was strong, but not perfect. I’m curious: what were the “third act problems” in your view?
The last half hour suffered from “and then” syndrome. By that I mean: As soon as Gordon’s family was in danger, nothing else mattered. That’s the emotional jacking up of jeopardy that should propel us through the third act to the climax. That was our ticking clock. Instead we took a fifteen minute detour with the boat sequence, and then Batman has to elude the police shooting at him, and then he has to fight the Joker, and then we’re back to the boats, and then the Joker’s caught, and then Batman has to go after Two-Face.
Basically you had too many ticking clocks. The ticking clock is typically the event that both ratchets up the emotional investment of the hero and impels the plot toward its climax because it has to be resolved NOW. A deadline has been put into place. Either they needed to remove Two-Face from the story, or they needed to remove the boats from the story. Instead the focus was split and the last half hour, rather than building, seemed to drag. They also could have trimmed the entire storyline with the guy who figured out Wayne’s identity, because that basically went nowhere. Sure, you can say that the guy is going to keep his mouth shut because Bruce saved his life. Except he went around Gotham saying he knew Batman’s identity. You think the press isn’t going to keep pursuing that? You think criminals aren’t going to keep coming after him to learn what he knows? Are we to assume that he subsequently recants and says he was just kidding? Hëll of an assumption considering what a major plot point it was.
So yeah: Pacing and focus problems in the third act.
PAD
I liked Iron-Man, but I thought it had some issues. Building the second version of the suit dragged on a bit.
Plus, the comedy got a little slap-stick after awhile. Tony felt kinda bumbling, which detracted from believing he could put on the final version of the suit and be such a great action hero. He went from absent minded professor to badass just by painting the suit.
Those are minor quibbles, though. It was still really good.
re: Starship Troopers
I didnt like or dilike the movie that much, but I felt it was pretty true to Heinlein’s styl in this book and in general, so I wa satisfied with it. I also felt the irector did a clever job of conveying Heinlein’s quasi-fascist way of thinking (in the book) without coming outright and saying, this is bad or good, which would have undemined the story. I did regret that they neglected the tecnical stuff related to actual battles in the book, which I think contributed to the dullness of the action scenes in the movie.
re: Iron Man
If you look closely at the movie yo kind of realize that the plot was kindof silly, and the villains not so great. But the charsma of the hero made all that secondary. I think the cleve thing Favreau di was take the cool fun attitude that was characteristics of is early buddy movies and transfered it into the superhero genre So he kind of made a superhero buddy movie. This, combined with the lead actor’s personal charisma and chemistry with other actors gave tis movie the extra someting that made it stand out.
re: Dark Knight
There were some very impressive and thoughtful things about this movie. It was very long. The biggest problem I had with it was that the hero, Batman, felt a little faded. I was extremely impressed with the Joker, with the direction, with the story, with Two-Face, with the thoughtful script, but not with Batman that much. It’s still a great movie, but you know, Batman is the hero, you want to come out routing for him.
I had a similar bu different problem with the Incredble Hulk. It was a story of a guy who sometimes turns into a monster — it was not sufficiently the story of the Hulk himself. He was more a problem of Bruce Baner than a character in his own right.
Maybe it’s part of the attitude that caused problems in Spiderman 3 — as if the director or studio didn’t really care that much for the masked partiall CGI hero who took the place of their highly payed star every once in a while. Iron Man avoided that problem partially by showing Robert Downy Jr’s face even when he was in the suit, and partially by fusing the two persona completely, which is imossible with the Hulk.
PAD: “Basically you had too many ticking clocks.”
****SPOILER ALERT (although I think I was the last person on earth to have seen the film, it pays to be safe)****
The film also lost its way thematically at that point. When Batman took the blame for Dent’s crimes, he told Gordon, “Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more.” The idea being that people deserve a hero they can believe in. Yet the people on the rigged boats were their own heroes, refusing to give into the Joker’s sick games.
I also felt the movie lost a little something when the Joker decided he no longer wanted to kill the Batman. The stakes were still high for the Batman, but not high enough for the protagonist in an action movie.
I also question the decision to leave the Joker alive at the end of the film, leaving open the possibility of bringing him back in a later movie. The Joker blew up an entire hospital in “The Dark Knight.” Where do you go from there? Have him detonate a nuke?
Posted by: Peter David
The last half hour suffered from “and then” syndrome. By that I mean: As soon as Gordon’s family was in danger, nothing else mattered. That’s the emotional jacking up of jeopardy that should propel us through the third act to the climax. That was our ticking clock. Instead we took a fifteen minute detour with the boat sequence, and then Batman has to elude the police shooting at him, and then he has to fight the Joker, and then we’re back to the boats, and then the Joker’s caught, and then Batman has to go after Two-Face.
Basically you had too many ticking clocks. The ticking clock is typically the event that both ratchets up the emotional investment of the hero and impels the plot toward its climax because it has to be resolved NOW.
Or, since this thread is about “The Spirit”, the ticking clock is the story, as in “Ten Minutes” – which would make a hëll of a ten-minute film. As long as Frank Miller was kept frar away from it.
Posted by: Micha
re: Starship Troopers
I didnt like or dilike the movie that much, but I felt it was pretty true to Heinlein’s styl in this book and in general, so I wa satisfied with it. I also felt the irector did a clever job of conveying Heinlein’s quasi-fascist way of thinking (in the book) without coming outright and saying, this is bad or good, which would have undemined the story.
Okay – first, it was nowhere near Heinlein’s style. Second, Heinlein’s “way of thinking” in the book is *not* “quasi-fascist” (at least in the sense that the ternm has come to be used.) The society is *not* a dictatorship, and it is, in fact, more democratic than ours (which isn’t, in fact, a democracy at all, but rather a reprsentative republic with a democratic selection method of representatives). Sure, you have to satisfactorily complete a term of federal service – but that doesn’t mean it has to be military service – though, during a war, that’s going to be where the most manpower is needed.
Posted by: Bill Myers
I also question the decision to leave the Joker alive at the end of the film, leaving open the possibility of bringing him back in a later movie. The Joker blew up an entire hospital in “The Dark Knight.” Where do you go from there? Have him detonate a nuke?
Wrong villain died.
In The Dark Knight, Batman had been struggling with the underhandedness of what he was doing, and he learned to compensate for not being the white knight, and for Harvey failing to relieve him of trying to attain that responsibility, by taking the role of scapegoat. In effect, Batman’s adopting the blame cemented that role you observed for people in their own lives. Your observation only underscores the rightness of how the events of the movie unfolded.
But more importantly, the movie also presented for the viewing audience Batman’s breakthrough into a form of perfect freedom by his change. In times were the election campaigns of the most unpopular president in polling history were based on pretense, it’s a theme needed for our times. Thematically, The Dark Knight was dense, but it seems to have earned that privilege also by thematically being tightly-crafted.
I thought that thread was nice, because of how it fed into the theme of Batman increasing his own effectiveness and capability by extending his own vulnerability. If they have to, an analogy could be made to how Deep Throat was able to stay unidentified for so long.
The Dark Knight set the standard for substantive superhero movie.
I haven’t seen The Spirit, but since we’re also taking about movies I have seen, I might as well throw in my two cents.
I liked Starship Troopers because it condemned fascism by actually being a fascist movie, which I thought was an original and clever take on the material. And anyway, I hated the novel, so I didn’t suffer from the “It Wasn’t True to Heinlein’s Vision” syndrome.
Iron Man and The Dark Knight are both fantastic, but I feel it was the former, not the latter, that had third act problems. If anything, TDK had first act problems (I can’t really remember what those problems were, I just remember not really liking the movie that much at first and only gradually becoming completely enthralled by it, to the point of not wanting it to end). Iron Man’s climax felt a bit lazy, and even though I loved the movie, it kind of felt like the pilot episode of a TV series. It was like a great appetizer, but it left me eager for an entree.
And Twin Peaks was brilliant. Most of it, anyway. Okay, so about half of it was brilliant and the other half was absolute rubbish, but it’s the brilliant parts I choose to remember.
I saw The Spirit the other night and I actually liked it. Granted I have never read a Spirit comic before so I had no predisposition against what was on the screen. Though I found some aspects of the film a bit cheesy overall I enjoyed it. Was it the best movie I ever saw? No. Have I seen much worse? Yes. I give The Spirit three stars out of five.
I’m not a huge Heinlein fan, nor a believer in his ideas, but Starship Troopers the movie had nothing to do with Heinlein, it rather felt like a left-wing liberal doing a parody of Heinlein.
Thank you Bill. I think the Internet ideally should be a place where people can exchange all kinds of differing ideas.
I can certainly appreciate the other side’s point of view (I loved the novel version of Roger Rabbit and that contributed to me being one of the few who didn’t like the movie) but in this case while I’ve reaad the Spirit before, I’ve never been really grabbed by the character. If I had been a huge fan of the character before, my reaction would have likely been a lot different.
And at the end of the day, love the movie or hate it, we’re basically talking about 2 hours of our lives (unless we like it enough to see it again). And I like to believe that most filmmakers, however successful or unsuccessful are trying to make people happy for a couple hours. When you look at it that way, it becomes easier to respect even filmmakers you don’t care for.
The problem, I think, is that F.M. is good at violent, hard-hitting macho stories, and what The Spirit needed was a light touch. Still, it had it’s moments. I liked the visual style. There were funny moments. It’s just that it didn’t hang together.
I love Bruce Campbell, but he’s too old for the part. Sorry, Bruce. A younger Bruce, or a younger Mark Hamill 🙂
But the actors weren’t the problem. I thought that every-one did a bang up job. It was the tone. And, somewhat, the pace. And the voiceover felt out place.
PAD: Speaking of Bruce Campbell – Where’s the Cowboy Pete reviews of Burn Notice?