The Spirit (2008)

Rookie cop Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces in Central City.

Director:

Frank Miller

Writers:

Frank Miller (screenplay), Will Eisner (comic book series)

Stars:

Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jaime King	...	Lorelei
Gabriel Macht	...	Spirit
Dan Gerrity	...	Detective Sussman
Arthur the Cat	...	Himself
Kimberly Cox	...	Damsel in Distress
Brian Neal Lucero	...	Thug 1 (as Brian Lucero)
David Brian Martin	...	Thug 2 (as David B. Martin)
Larry Reinhardt-Meyer	...	Officer MacReady
Frank Miller	...	Liebowitz
Eva Mendes	...	Sand Saref
Eric Balfour	...	Mahmoud
Samuel L. Jackson	...	Octopus
Louis Lombardi	...	Pathos, etc.
Scarlett Johansson	...	Silken Floss
Sarah Paulson	...	Ellen

Storyline

Down these mean streets a man must come. A hero born, murdered, and born again. When a Rookie cop named Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces from the shadows of Central City. The Octopus who kills anyone unfortunate enough to see his face who has other plans. He's going to wipe out the entire city. The Spirit tracks this cold hearted killer from the city's rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront all the while facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill the masked crusader.

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Plot Keywords:

pants falling down | female star appears nude | white rat | woman in a towel | samurai | 

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Taglines:

He's something the world needs...

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Fantasy | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of stylized violence and action, some sexual content and brief nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Lionsgate [United States] Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

25 December 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Will Eisner's The Spirit

Filming Locations:

New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$60,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$6,463,278, 28 December 2008, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$19,781,879, 18 January 2009

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate, Dark Lot Entertainment, MWM (MadisonWellsMedia)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Some scenes were shot using a new digital camera called "The Phantom", that can shoot at up to one thousand frames per second. Most of the film was shot with Panavision Genesis cameras.

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Goofs

During the first fight between the Spirit and the Octopus, the Octopus gets hit and apparently knocked out. He disappears into the murky muddy waters. Octopus then surfaces slowly so only a little bit of his hat and face are visible. Suddenly, his whole body surfaces with a weapon that looked like a giant wrench. He hits the Spirit between the legs with an upward motion with enough force to lift the Spirit upwards. When the Spirit lands, they're both standing on the muddy shore. In other words, after the Octopus fully emerges from the water, he's immediately standing in mud which isn't even an inch deep.

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Quotes

The Spirit: She provides for me, my city does. She gives me everything I need.

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Crazy Credits

In the opening credits, the title of the film is the very last thing shown. Typically, the title appears early in the credits, and "directed by" is the final credit.

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Alternate Versions

To receive a 12A cinema certificate the UK version was cut by 25 secs with edits to a woman being threatened by a knife-wielding gang, a repeated head punching, a shot of a severed finger and a shot of a man's rib cage embedded in the ground.

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Connections

References Sin City (2005)

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Soundtracks

Deutschland Uber Alles
Performed by Captain Helmut Witten and the German Airforce Band
Written by Franz Joseph Haydn
Courtesy of Legacy International

User Reviews

A flawed but fun-filled romp.

I love the interview with Lorenzo Semple Jnr, screenwriter for 'Flash Gordon,' when he suggests that the film would have been a big hit if only they'd been able to market it as a movie that would be a cult classic in thirty years. He goes on to explain what the core problem is: A cult film, by definition has fanatical supporters ... just not a lot of them. Those who 'get' the film will keep it alive forever, but Joe Moviegoer won't care if he ever sees it again. And so I turn to 'The Spirit,' a film which has similar qualities to 'Flash Gordon': bad enough to be awesome, tongue firmly in it's cheek and gentle satire in it's hand.

'The Spirit' manages to be wondrous and infuriating. A visual feast, Frank Miller was the perfect choice to bring the film to life. On the other hand, the dialogue is often so cheesy and the characters so over the top that the movie never allows you to be lulled into that wonderful moment of forgetting that you're watching a movie. There isn't a single character in the movie who talks like a real person. They all talk like, well, comic book archetypes: gruff commissioner, megalomaniacal super villain, brilliant evil assistant, sultry femme fatales, loyal and uninteresting love interest, and on and on. Take Samuel L Jackson's character, 'The Octopus' for example. It is a character that Jackson was born to play and Sam throws every ounce of his endlessly entertaining and over the top style into the character. It works and he plays the part brilliantly because he takes ridiculous dialogue and ridiculous material and has wild amounts of fun with it. The cast, by and large, follow his lead. Scarlett Johansson is hilariously withering with her acerbic barbs to The Octopus' clone lackeys, all of whom are played with deadpan wit and verve by Louis Lombardi. It is hard, in fact, not to feel some pity for Gabriel Macht who has to play Bud Abbott to a cast of rollicking, scene-chewing Lou Costellos in an over-acting competition. It all works wonderfully if you're willing to view the film as, uncharitably, being unintentionally funny or more genuinely as a gentle lampoon of comic book films by one of the great figures of the graphic novel genre.

Frank Miller takes 'The Spirit' and has great fun with it. It is quirky at times, ham-handed at times, but lovingly made. A brilliant Noirist, Miller actually has much better luck in 'The Spirit' in moments of levity. The noir angles of this film don't work unless designed as a kind of self-righteous satire. The noir feels forced and dramatic moments are mercilessly skewered by the corny dialogue that a helpless Gabriel Macht delivers with straight-laced determination. 'The Spirit' has the look of 'Sin City' and the heart of 'Flash Gordon.' When it works, it works well, but the film is a terrible mess whenever it is trying to be serious.

So is it worth the ride? I think so if you go in with the proper expectations. There's not really anything new visually if you've seen 'Sin City' or '300' -- both Miller works of course -- but that didn't make them any less interesting to me. Plenty of humour where it may or may not have been planned and the potential to be a cult classic. This is the kind of movie you can best enjoy in the company of friends and a cold six pack. Look for diamonds and you're looking for too much. And if nothing else, Eva Mendes has never looked better on film than she does here. That's got to stand for something, right?