The Spirit (2008) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2008
Director: Frank Miller
Cast: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, Scarlett Johansson, Jaime King, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Louis Lombardi
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: 25 December 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes 30 seconds

The Movie Review

The Spirit film still 1


The SPIRIT
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

Consequences... Not all bad things come with consequences, even good things also come with burdening consequences. In the movie world, when filmmakers make a bad movie, the consequences are pretty much mostly unpleasant. But if they made a good one, fans might demand for something even greater, which is somehow hard to accomplish. As for this case, probably most of fellow moviegoers must've watched 300 (2006)? This is Sparta!!! Yes, the great epic movie back in 2007. And probably also Sin City (2005)? Which appealed to majority of reviewers out there. The man behind those movies was Frank Miller, and this time he tried to please fans with his latest work, The Spirit. The Spirit is based on a newspaper comic strip written by Will Eisner, which was first seen on June 2nd 1940.

The Spirit tells of a man who lives between the life and the dead, he is not dead but he is also not very much alive. He's simply resurrected from beyond the grave in a mysterious way. A distinctively unique hero he is, the spirit or Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) loves women, he is a play boy in his own kind of way, but one thing that he loves the most is his city, the Central City. And one person who seem always having fun ruining the day is the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). On one night at the swampland, a fight ensues between Octopus and Spirit, but on the end of their intensely comical fight, the Octopus mention one thing that intrigues The Spirit, a certain fact about their similarity. As awesome as The Spirit is, he doesn't know what actually makes him near immortal. But Octopus doesn't tell Spirit the secret and he runs away. And so While Octopus is now busy searching for the blood of Heracles, which could make him ultimately immortal, The Spirit hunts Octopus to stop him from making chaos and to find out the truth about The Spirit's own immortal secret.

Still in comic style with dominant colours are black and white, and with only several bold colours as the accentuation (mainly red!), The Spirit though delivers the same atmosphere with Sin City, but it offers something else for its viewers, comedy. But does the comedy justify that The Spirit is a good movie? Unfortunately no! That's not the case here... The story drags on and on without any real punch, without any memorable charm. Of course the style is great, over-the-top and cool. Certainly if I were still a 13-year old boy, I would be having a blast watching this, especially considering the rating (PG-13) which with it I could get to see Eva Mendes's behind, although... Paz Vega, who played as the Belly Dancer named Plaster from Paris, is the winner. Sleek, Sexy and Deadly, sigh... If only this movie is also like that. And talking about Plaster from Paris, who is an additional character, the other additional characters in The Spirit are the one that appealing the most compared to main characters such as The Spirit, The Spirit's love interest Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), The Octopus, and even Octopus's sexy sidekick Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson). In addition to Plaster from Paris, this film is enlivened with the presence of Pathos, Ethos, Logos, Dialos, Sos, Adios, Amigos and other blank-blank-os (Louis Lombardi), those chubby dudes with their weird grammar is delightful.

I know this is a fictional story and anything that goes on in this movie can not be justified with real-life method, some actions are definitely illogical (of course it's a superhero movie), but the story is bland, it's uninteresting. The comedy is too much that it disturbs the seriousness of the story, it's a bit confused storyline. Though, once again, fellow moviegoers who haven't seen 300 and Sin City might amazed with the picture it presents, but for fans of those aforementioned films, The Spirit is a failure. But a cheap rent is enough if you don't have better movies to watch or simply curious about Frank Miller's film. But as a movie of its own, The Spirit is a decent movie, if not too long.