The Spirit

Where our previous Frank Miller escapade was dark, the Spirit is silly. The Spirit tells the story of a former cop (Gabriel Macht) who protects the people of Central City beating up bad guys, like Central City's psychotic criminal mastermind The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson,) and taking a pounding in the process with no side effects. He's a ladies man who cannot be killed and he's on the beat tracking an old flame Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) and her idiot husband (Eric Balfour.) The Octopus and his bored mad-scientist associate, Silken Floss (Scarlett Johanssen,) are after a priceless artifact. Seems Sand Saref is after it, too. And The Spirit just wants to end The Octopus' underground activities permanently.

The central figure of a noir plot may be a disgraced cop, in this case one who's undead. He's involved in an investigation into the underground. A boss is involved and there a clutch of femme fatales, girls who have their own agendas and who are seductive and destructive in the same package. And there is a love interest who stands miles away from the femmes. She is pure, virtuous, and our hero loves her with all his heart: it's always been her, but she waits in the wings, because he can't resist the others. And usually the case destroys our hero. But is this the case with The Spirit? This one is so like the typical noir plot, but unlike as well. The similarities include the disgraced cop/hero, the underground boss, and the femme fatales, as well the style, dark and starkly lit as is Frank Miller's brilliant style. But it's also slightly more into the vein of a superhero story, as our hero is undead and so is his nemesis and they fight in the realm of the supernatural and superhuman. Its a western, in heart, with the shootouts and scuffles. But it works well this marriage of genres.

The only problem I see is the long dialogue, mostly delivered by Samuel L. Jackson's The Octopus. The action turns stale, both internal, emotional action and also physical movement. Mr. Jackson is one of my boys, I've been a really big fan since the pairing between himself and Mr. Travolta in Pulp Fiction with his misquoting of the prophet Ezekiel. However, here, he harms the overall feel of the story with over-the-top delivery, which, to be fair, is what The Octopus is. So, what we have here is a Catch-22. The Octopus as a character is perfectly cast in Mr. Jackson, but his performance puts me off....yeesh!!

Sin City is elegant; The Spirit is simple. Over-the-top melodramatically simple, yes. The film is also beautifully designed, similar to Rodrigues' opera. But this is jazz, smooth jazz with an edge that sounds a bit wrong, but it does the job. The story is tight, but the villain dissolves the oil in the gears causing the machine to creak a bit. But there's little damage done and it works as a great piece of eye candy that really tastes good.

***

In: Jamie King

Out: Louis Lombardi

Coming Soon: Suicide Kings