I recently watched Frank Miller's movie, The Spirit. I'm a big fan of Sin City but this movie confounds me. I feel completely... blank... toward this film. I don't hate it, I don't like it. I'm indifferent. It's not like there's anything WRONG with the movie - there just happens to be nothing right. The visuals are interesting but I couldn't bring myself to care about the plot or the characters at all. It doesn't have the heart of Sin City even though it carries many of the stylistic themes.
Perhaps it is because this movie relies so heavily upon cliche. Or perhaps it is because the characters aren't humanized at all. Perhaps it is because the film twists its own internal logic without explanation. I don't know.
Bottom line advice from me is: Skip this movie unless you're trying to watch every comic book movie.
1LR review: 8 out of 20 - it's a miss!
I haven't watched this based on the many bad reviews. Recently picked up Spirit: Femme Fatales, which collects a bunch of Eisner's Spirit stories. While I appreciated Eisner's breakthrough style, especially when compared to other artists of that era, the stories were just OK. Maybe Miller stayed too close to the source material instead of trying to make a good film.
ReplyDeleteIt's a case of style over substance. Frankly (ha, ha) a lot of Miller's recent work has been trash. His last graphic novel, Holy War, is now available everywhere at great discounts because comic shops ordered it in spades but fans quickly discovered it's complete rubbish.
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