The Spirit

I just came back from watching The Spirit at the Huntinton 7 and I have mixed feelings about it. It definately accelled in some areas, and seemed to totally ignore others.

It worked as a comic book. It failed as a movie.

The Good:

The strongest point of the movie was the visuals. It had the comic book visuals which were beautiful and very stylistic. Very bold, bright colors contrasted with black and white. And shades in between. And it had very good cinematography-> shot to shot, it worked visually. And the third strength was Samuel L. Jackson as "The Octopus." He was a perfect fit, and went all-out with it. And he added some strength to the acting all around. If he wasn't there, I probably would've lost interest an hour into the movie and just walked out.

The Bad:

As I mentioned, the only strong actor in the movie was Samuel L. Jackson. Everyone else was just kind of "there." They said their lines and made each sentance as dramatic as possible. Some may say that that is just part of the comic book style: to have the characters be simple and bold and spur on the whole comic book theme. And I agree; it does work as a comic book. It fell flat as a movie. With Miller not really having Rodriguez there for this movie, you can really see all of Miller's strengths and the absense of Rodriguez's strengths. This movie needed a director. And the writing was really quite poor. If you haven't already seen the movie and are planning to, don't count on well-developed characters or a good satisfying plot.

The Low-down:

Excellent stylistic visuals, one good actor, bad writing, little directing skills, tight transitions, unsatisfying plot or characters. If you want to watch a visually appealing comic book for 1 hr. 45 min., but don't really care about character development, plot, or timing, you can definately have fun watching The Spirit. But if you do, watch it on the big screen. It won't be worth renting when it comes out.