"The Spirit" has been hijacked by Miller and in turn hijacked by Hollywood. Creator Will Eisner's original vision is awfully hard to discern. Miller needs an R rating to explore his version of Central City. With a PG-13 rating, "The Spirit" lives in an uncomfortable valley between the base noir fetishism of "Sin City" and the campiness of Adam West's "Batman." Corny asides from The Spirit (Gabriel Who?) share the screen with a belly-dancing torturer (Paz Vega) and a Nazi-uniformed villain (Samuel L. Jackson). Okay, now that I've written them down: those are just bad ideas, no matter what the rating.
All his illustrations may look like pulverized Superman, but on film Frank Miller is still an expert visual stylist. He's helped in part by the trailblazing effects work of "Sin City" director Robert Rodriguez. The studio-mandated pulled-punches occasionally contribute to the fun in the form of silhouettes--think The Spirit viciously beating a thug in an alley or Sand Saref's victim in the foreground of a shot.
As in "Sin City," Miller shows his love of Chuck Taylors; The Spirit's soles are the brightest objects in the film. "The Spirit" gets an extra star for this.
The Spirit's shoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment