It’s a given that Samuel L. Jackson automatically improves the quality of any film or TV show he’s put in, but not only does he steal the show in The Spirit, he’s pretty much the only good thing in the entire film. Well, him and Scarlett Johansson (loved her as Silken Flossy *swoon* *raging hard-on* =^_^;;=)

As Frank Miller’s directing debut, The Spirit is a showcase of the celebrated artist/writer’s distinct style. Stark, iconic imagery fills every scene, every character is a larger than life persona, and every line of oozes with his trademark noir-style dialogue. Unfortunately, Frank stamps his style so hard on everything that it actually becomes a detriment to the film as a whole. Although Frank supposedly worked with The Spirit’s original creator, Will Eisner, to bring it to the big screen, the fruit of that collaboration appears to suffer from having two distinct visions that are in direct conflict with each other throughout the film. One moment we have a scene of light-hearted campiness that hearkens back to the more innocent days of comic book superheroism only to be immediately followed by scenes of graphic violence and dark brooding.

This bi-polar approach made the film a real trial for me to watch. On the one hand, I understand that Miller was trying to capture the essence of the early days of superhero comics; complete with their silly plots, outrageous villains and campy dialogue. On the other hand, there’s a big difference between understanding something and being entertained by it.

Ultimately, I wish the plot for The Spirit had been a bit more memorable, if only so I could have felt like I actually accomplished something by finishing the movie. Instead, it plays out more like then an ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle full of ideas that never really go anywhere. The film just sort of wanders from scene to scene, focusing for awhile on one subplot only to get bored and move on to another one. The Spirit’s main plot, which deals with the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) and San Seraf (Eva Mendes) tussling over a pair of relics from Greek mythology, feels more like an afterthought than anything else.

The only real bright spots in the whole film were the ones where Samuel L. Jackson’s character, The Octopus, would just hang out in his underground lair and act like a crazy villain. In fact, I greatly preferred these random scenes of bizarre behavior to any of the ones where he actually had to interact with the film’s titular character.

Bottom Line:
The Spirit is a terrible film even by comic book movie standards. The last film that I saw that was this bad was the terrible Elektra film from a few years ago. Don’t waste your money buying it if you can help it. Rent it instead.

Final Score: 1 out of 5 stars
Review by: LC1
Review Format: DVD