Review: The Spirit (movie)

[dvandom]

Dave's "Other Media" Rant Special: The Spirit movie

     I decided I didn't want to wait to put this into next week's Capsules.
:)  Think of this as an oversized capsule, I don't intend to go into plot
spoilers, although I may give away details that might count as spoilery by
stricter definitions.

     Short form: I liked it.  A little overwrought in a few places where that
was a bad thing (and very overwrought in places where it was called for), but
a fun movie.  Very little actual gore and only brief nudity (Eva Mendez's
backside).  Not really family-friendly, but it's practically cuddly for Frank
Miller's stuff.

     And now for the longer form.

     I should admit here that I have only a passing familiarity with the
Spirit.  I've read a few short stories in anthologies (and one of the few I
did read makes me suspect that "What's ten minutes in a man's life?" said
early in the movie was a deliberate reference to that story), I know why he
has a mask (coat-tailing on the masked vigilante craze, Eisner originally
conceived the character maskless but an editor told him to make a masked
man), and I know his outfit's supposed to be blue, not black.  I also know,
thanks to a few article about the movie, that the Octopus never appeared in
full in the comic.  And I strongly suspect that the mystery behind the
Spirit's origins was never really laid out in Eisner's comics, although I
could be wrong there.

     [Later note: I am informed that the mystery was resolved in the first comic
story, with a Dr. Cobra being behind the Secret Serum rather than Octopus.]

     That said, we do see the Octopus (and Samuel L. Jackson has loads of fun
playing him), and the Spirit's origin is laid out in detail by the end of the
movie, which falls into the usual movie trap of not being able to leave any
mysteries alone.  :)  (Seriously: Tim Burton's Batman found his parents'
killer in the first movie.  Spider-Man discovered the Green Goblin's identity
in the first movie.  I suppose Iron Man finding out about Obadiah Stane in
the first movie doesn't count since that's not even the original story, but
still.  At least Wolverine got to find out his origins by the third movie,
but given his comics backstory, that's almost the same as "right away".)  Oh,
and the Spirit wears black, but with a red tie and black and white athletic
shoes. 

     As for look and feel, Miller's shooting for something like the 1990s
Batman the Animated Series.  1940s styles on everything...clothing, cars,
ways of speaking.  But in the opening scene the Spirit answers his cellphone
and is wearing modern athletic shoes.  There's an Aquafina product
placement.  Modern attack helicopters show up for the endgame.  Presumably
those 1940s-looking cars have modern engines and built-in GPS.  No one really
pokes at the premise too hard, although there's one knowing wink to it (when
checking to make sure the Spirit's all right in the head, he's asked what
year it is, and he replies, "It's *this* year.").

     Another look and feel point worth noting is the use of computer effects,
along the lines of Sin City and 300.  Sometimes it's subtle, like the way
Sand Serif (Eva Mendez) is digitally smoothed out so she looks like she's
been airbrushed (mind you, maybe she WAS airbrushed in some scenes, but the
point is that she's made to look inhumanly smooth and even...by the time you
do see her bare butt, it's not clear that you're seeing real flesh anymore on
her).  Other times, it's blatant, such as sequences where the Spirit's tie
flaps about frenetically in a way no physical tie could, or the segues into
Miller-style black and white shadow art.

     Just as the visuals are deliberately abstracted and cartoonish, the
naming of things runs in that direction.  I presume Sand Serif and Plaster of
Paris are from the original comic, but no one bats an eye at those names or
other similar puns (although it is noted that "Sand Serif" is a unique name).
It's just taken as perfectly normal that someone named Sand Serif exists, or
that a woman from Paris might be named Plaster, or that a blond scientist
would be named Silken Floss.  To wit, they resist the urge to wink and nod at
the campier elements of the world.  They deadpan it very effectively.  And
really, unless you're willing to go all the way with camp, you're better off
avoiding it entirely.

     I thought the actual plot was fairly obvious, almost by the numbers.
Hollywood style resolution, in pretty much every way.  But it's not really
the plot that sells this movie, it's the dialogue and the acting.  And the
Bathos.  Or is that the Logos?  Whatever.  I enjoyed my afternoon at the
movies, at any rate.

   Dave Van Domelen, "And this is for MUFFIN!" - the Spirit