Today’s quick review: The Spirit. Denny Colt, a young cop in Central City, is given a second chance after he dies in the line of duty. He returns from the grave and dons a mask, becoming the immortal vigilante known as the Spirit. The Spirit aids the police in bringing the criminals of Central City to justice. Chief among these is the Octopus, an offbeat mastermind whose plan for absolute power is coming to fruition. Now the Spirit must fight his way through a tangled web of vat-grown henchmen, old flames, and all-around psychos to stop the Octopus before he brings the city to its knees.
The Spirit is a bizarre movie. Its roots are in the 40s comic of the same name by Will Eisner, but it is directed by Frank Miller and has similar visuals as Sin City, while the tone is something else altogether. Straight-laced heroic justice meshes with over-the-top acting, ironic comedy, and gritty villainy to form something that is not quite noir, not quite drama, not quite superhero film, and not quite comedy. The sensibilities of each are present, but they twist and compete with each other. The Spirit’s heroic monologues are frequently followed by embarrassing setbacks, yet his perseverance is rewarded. Likewise, the Octopus pushes the farthest boundaries on cartoon villainy, yet never wraps back around into sympathy. The Spirit has all the trappings of a deconstruction but never quite pulls the trigger. Its mishmash of sensibilities allows The Spirit to poke fun at the ideals and conventions of the early superhero genre while ultimately affirming them.
Everything about The Spirit is exaggerated, from its acting to its monochrome color palette. Fans of Frank Miller’s Sin City will be pleased to see the return of that movie’s stylish black-and-white visuals. The tone, however, is rather different from its spiritual predecessor. The Spirit has much less violence than Sin City, and while it features a similar gritty style, this style is layered on a base of conventional morality that is missing from Sin City. Where Sin City’s heroes are nearly as terrifying as its villains, The Spirit reaches far towards both ends of the morality spectrum: its heroes are righteous and self-sacrificing, and its villains are unabashedly evil.
The acting in The Spirit is intentionally extreme. Gabriel Macht as The Spirit talks to himself in dramatic terms almost continuously and falls madly in love just by setting his eyes on a woman. Samuel L. Jackson delivers a positively ridiculous performance as the Octopus, at various points clobbering The Spirit with a toilet, ranting feverishly about “getting egg on [his] face”, and dressing up in Nazi paraphernalia to emphasize a point about his master plan. Scarlett Johansson plays Silken Floss, a brilliant scientist who runs the Octopus’s organization, while Eva Mendes appears as Sand Saref, The Spirit’s jewelry-obsessed lost love.
The combination of its many exaggerated elements makes The Spirit a unique and polarizing movie. Fans of gritty crime movies will be turned off by its black-and-white morality and grandiose acting. Fans of adventure stories will struggle with its constant subversions and grimy exterior. But for those who like to dabble, those who enjoy stylistic ambiguity, and those for whom ironic subversion and earnest affection go hand-in-hand, The Spirit offers a delightful buffet of style and creativity. Expect little depth or seriousness but plenty of spectacle and fun. Just how well The Spirit’s peculiar flavor will sit with you is hard to know ahead of time, but those who are intrigued by stylized adventure should definitely give it a shot. 4.8 out of 10 on IMDB.