The Spirit (2008)
Average Rating: 3.6/10
Reviews Counted: 112
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 96
Though its visuals are unique, The Spirit's plot is almost incomprehensible, the dialogue is ludicrously mannered, and the characters are unmemorable.
Average Rating: 3.5/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 29
Though its visuals are unique, The Spirit's plot is almost incomprehensible, the dialogue is ludicrously mannered, and the characters are unmemorable.
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Average Rating: 2.5/5
User Ratings: 121,549
Movie Info
A resurrected cop does battle with a villain whose quest for immortality threatens an entire metropolis in Sin City creator Frank Miller's adaptation of Will Eisner's acclaimed graphic novel. When a rookie cop is brutally killed and mysteriously brought back to life, he assumes the guise of The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) -- a masked crime fighter who prowls the shadows of Central City on a supernatural mission to keep the urban landscape safe. Upon discovering that his arch nemesis, The Octopus
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Cast
-
Gabriel Macht
The Spirit -
Samuel L. Jackson
The Octopus -
Sarah Paulson
Ellen -
Eva Mendes
Sand Saref -
Dan Lauria
Dolan -
Paz Vega
Plaster of Paris -
Jaime King
Lorelei -
Scarlett Johansson
Silken Floss -
Louis Lombardi
Phobos -
Stana Katic
Morgenstern -
Johnny Simmons
Denny Colt
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The Spirit Trailer & Photos
All Critics (113) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (96) | DVD (4)
Every 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.
Top CriticWhat is most striking about The Spirit is how little pleasure it affords, in spite of its efforts to by sly, sexy, heartfelt and clever all at once.
I thought it was sort of cool and corny simultaneously.
Is it campy? Or is it cool? Is it stylized? Or is it corny and cheesy? It doesn't really know.
Someone get this man a decent script.
Denny Colt might have come back from the dead, but The Spirit stays cold on the slab.
Frank Miller will undoubtedly make a movie worth watching one day, but it isn't The Spirit.
The Spirit feels like an extended trip through Frank Miller's personal fantasyland, and it's easy to guess how interesting a film made for an audience of one is going to be to anyone else.
I guess a movie this brassy, sumptuous, and unafraid of what-the-hell effects, gags and visuals isn't enough for a lot of people. I don't really know why.
A blissfully coked-out-of-its-mind spit-take on Eisner and the modern world of superhero cinema, The Spirit is wet bag of hot breath.
If Frank Miller is aiming for camp, he's playing cricket with a sledgehammer
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.
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.
More interested in being a technical marvel than a coherent story.
Soa como uma mistura desajeitada de filme noir e da série de tevê Batman produzida na década de 60.
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.
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.
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.
The Spirit is hollow, with a convoluted plot, and Miller has clearly opted for visual style over thematic depth.
As it went on, I discovered that it had a kind of appealingly dumb, playful quality.
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.
Eva Mendes is the new Raquel Welch but even Raquel/Eva can't make this movie work
Is it trying to be a parody of itself?
Now that they've gone and made Batman all serious and good, the campy comics hero movie mantle has been taken up by The Spirit.
In their first battle, The Octopus smashes a toilet over The Spirit's head, laughs maniacally, and declares, "Toilets are always funny!" This movie would know: It clearly deserves to be flushed down one.
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.
Audience Reviews for The Spirit
Super Reviewer
The cast is good but cant save the film, Jackson is soooo very camp he could be in the next Schumacher Batman film hehe leading man Macht is nothing special, pretty non descript really and Dan Lauria (Wonder Years fame :) where the hell has he been?) plays the usual cliched up tight, rough, grumpy police chief. The ladies though are all delicious for sure, Eva Mendes being scrumptious ;) and Johansson looking really dominant n naughty in a Nazi officers outfit.
The film looks good, don't get me wrong...it looks damn fine just like Sin City but it falls way short of that film, waaaay short. I think many people are simply assuming and saying this is good because its Frank Miller and it looks like 'Sin City', yep it looks nice but its nothing compared to 'Sin'.
Spirit is a strange combination of the old serial superhero comics (Spirit was created in the 40's) but has a violent undercurrent not as harsh as 'Sin' but much harder than 'Tracy', Shadow etc...yet also slightly camp and off the wall on the villain side, almost another 'Joker' really. Jackson is too much of a modern day man to fit into this old 40's/50's type of background, he's too hip n cool haha he just doesn't fit the bill.
Quite a cocktail that doesn't really work in my opinion, all style and no substance, just hot on the heels of Sin and trying to reap the benefits. Could of been so much more.
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| There was no way this was mean't to be taken seriously | 51 days ago | 1 |
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Movie: ID: 770678782 Title: The Spirit Release Date: 2008-12-25 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 3 Status: 1
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