No amount of flash can camouflage the career-low performances, the scaffolding where characterisation should be, the pitiful cod '40s dialogue, the monstrously fumbled comedy.
Comment
05/12/09
The Spirit (2008)
15
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:108
Fresh:16
Rotten:92
Average Rating:3.6/10
Consensus: Though its visuals are unique, The Spirit's plot is almost incomprehensible, the dialogue is ludicrously mannered, and the characters are unmemorable.
Theatrical Release:01-01-2009
Synopsis: Adapted from the legendary comic strip, THE SPIRIT is a classic action-adventure-romance told by genre-twister FRANK MILLER (creator of 300 and SIN CITY). It is the story of a former rookie cop... [More]
Starring: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes
Director: Frank Miller
Reviews for The Spirit
Displaying admirable love for pulp material and striking enviably sexy poses, but missing the emotional resonance, zeitgeist-catching populism and mainstream thrills which found movie franchises.
01/05/09
Top CriticEvery once in a while a genuine turkey escapes the coop, bereft of charm or wit, utterly lacking in technical prowess, integrity or intelligence. ‘The Spirit’ is such a film.
01/05/09
Top CriticMiller shoots it in the inky graphic style of Sin City, but he clearly hasn't a clue how to stage a scene, or shoot it, and he singly fails to animate his actors.
01/05/09
Top CriticFrank Miller's adaptation of the antique comic strip by Will Eisner is brash, noisy and so alarmingly ill-paced that it should, by rights, come with a software package that allows viewers to recut it as they see fit.
01/05/09
Top CriticThe Spirit’s greatest crime is that it is so boring – encapsulated in a scene where the Spirit and the Octopus slug it out for an eternity as both are sucked into treacly mud.
01/05/09
Miller's adaptation certainly looks impressive and the female characters are all drop-dead gorgeous in a Sin City way, but the script and story are all over the place and it never really comes together.
01/05/09
A movie trailer can give unintended clues as to what to expect - The Spirit's (see it on YouTube if you missed it) is one long piece of chaos. And so is the pic.
01/02/09
This screen adaptation of Will Eisner's beloved comic books is intriguing enough to be watchable, but is so chaotic that it doesn't work at all
01/01/09
Frank Miller's first solo effort as a director is an entertaining, if forgettable, cinematic imagining of Will Eisner's classic superhero The Spirit.
12/19/08
If Frank Miller is aiming for camp, he's playing cricket with a sledgehammer
08/26/09
Certifiably, but agreeably, insane, "The Spirit" plays like "Dick Tracy" on brown acid. Dialogue is bleated, not spoken. Artifacts are used as snuggle blankets. And it's aggressively bizarre, but it's the definition of guilty-pleasure entertainment.
06/17/09
More interested in being a technical marvel than a coherent story.
04/29/09
Soa como uma mistura desajeitada de filme noir e da série de tevê Batman produzida na década de 60.
03/20/09
As an action director Miller is almost as clumsy as Baz Luhrmann, but he's far from naïve, and presumably the delirium of The Spirit is exactly what he intended.
02/13/09
Miller's background as an artist was undoubtedly an important factor in achieving the striking visual effects. It's just when the human characters dominate the action that the film sinks like a stone.
02/06/09
It's a plot from the 'more is more' school of scriptwriting and while the live action crossed with stylised graphic novel effect is sublime, it can't distract from the clunkiness of it all.
01/30/09
The Spirit is hollow, with a convoluted plot, and Miller has clearly opted for visual style over thematic depth.
01/29/09
As it went on, I discovered that it had a kind of appealingly dumb, playful quality.
01/09/09
Miller's directing chops, er, chop, is non-existent, offering up a muck of amateurish posturing, weak storyline and tedious characters. As for the title? Ouch, that's some irony.
01/08/09
Latest News for The Spirit
April 13, 2009:
RT on DVD: Frank Miller Talks The Spirit, Michel Gondry Releases New Music Video DVD
It's a light week for home video entertainment, but never fear -- RT on DVD is here! We'll kick things off with the biggest title of the week: Frank Miller's The Spirit, which... More...
January 10, 2009:
ASpiritedLife.com: The Eva Mendes Spirit Interview: Kicking Ass And Revealing Some Too 
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January 04, 2009:
TeenDirectory.net: Erotic sleuthing laced with backwards babes, and Paulson on female doormat duty while Scarlett's shrewdie hangs with a murderous gang of homicidal fattie clones, like an underworld Madonna bossing an obedient crew of paunchy boy toys.
More...
December 29, 2008:
Visually spectacular adaptation of Will Eisner's legendary comics creation is all Frank Miller and very little Eisner. Part crime thriller, part superhero origin story, it opts for bombastic weirdness rather than the comic's trademark humanism.
More...
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