As an informed analyst of sequential art, which includes comics, I would be very remiss in my studies if I had not read at least The Spirit, of Eisner's works. However, unlike some fans, I don't insist that it is a flawless masterpiece or that only the original creator can do the story justice. There are plenty of people out there that could compose a worthy homage to this iconic and well-loved series and character.
Frank Miller is not one of them.
Barely passable as a comic creator, he is tolerable chiefly only when doing original work, not attempting to corrupt the inventions of other, better authors. This is made so palpable by the puerile, amateurish, and awkward scripting and stilted direction for the film version of the Spirit.
Part of what made the original comic so great was its beautifully-rendered panels, which evoked a kind of cinematic framing. Eisner's Spirit was very three-dimensional and tangible, it was easy to grasp, and its characters were neither oversimplified nor overcomplicated, they were merely people interacting in the situations that occurred. Miller's Spirit, on the other hand, is flat and two-dimensional, even in its blocking: many scenes have characters pacing in straight lines back and forth or tracing directly linear paths in the background, which makes it seem like a shooting gallery at a carnival and certainly does not indicate the depths of an actual three-dimensional space. It seems a step backwards, in fact, from the deep and realistic dimensions of Eisner's original, to Miller's inexplicably flattened world.
Basically this is just Sin City with the names of the Spirit characters and some vague external resemblance to them. It's clear Miller has never read a single Spirit story and has no idea who the characters are, and this is especially evident in the fact that he rips off several shots directly from covers of later magazines -- which is obviously where he stopped in his investigation of the story. Immediately we have the Spirit himself indulging in pretentious self-narrative, something he doesn't do, the Octopus showing his face openly, something he doesn't do, and Commissioner Dolan resenting the Spirit's presence, something he doesn't do. It doesn't improve from there, with each character demonstrating only the slightest of resemblances to the actual comic character.
As usual, Miller's homophobia is on full display here, and as usual, his obsession with prostitutes makes its way into not only the plot, but also the narrative, more times than really are necessary or welcome. His fixation on graphic violence is also inconsistent with the original Spirit tales, and the actions in the first ten minutes alone completely fly in the face of the source material.
The acting is atrocious as well, which is surprising considering the level of talent of most of the cast. From the first character we see, a pretentious and obnoxious embodiment of "Death", the acting is strictly bottom-of-the-barrel. Shouldn't Death be slightly jarring or imposing, and not have all the gravitas and pathos of a preschool holiday pageant? It doesn't improve at all from there, with each and every subsequent character worse than the previous. All of the actors involved in the production come off as if they were under the impression that the final filmed scene was just a casual take, and a joke at that; in several scenes, the actors involved seem to be openly and obviously intoxicated. That's fine if you're good enough to pull it off (Michael Caine in Jaws: The Revenge comes to mind as doing a surprisingly good job acting despite being clearly drunk out of his mind), but nobody in this cast is. Samuel Jackson should be good, but he's horrifyingly bad here, and it seems that after the ridiculous Snakes on a Plane, he can only give a token effort. The only actor in this who does even a passable job is Arthur the Cat, and if I were him, I'd be looking for another agent.
The flashback with the jarringly modernistic teenagers (no better actors than their elders, I might add) attempting to look "retro" shattered any last few vestiges of the setting. Miller saw fit to condense the flashback into an unnatural mass of interactions that demolished any hope of sympathy for the characters, especially with our young Denny Colt seeming more concerned that Sand Saref didn't enjoy life in poverty in their disgusting urban hole than the fact that she only just found out that her father had just been killed.
It's always breathtaking to me how needlessly overcomplicated the script was in this, when in the original it was usually just as simple as "the Spirit solves a mystery and fights some bad guys", with liberal doses of humor and some usually well-aimed social commentary. Ellen Dolan wasn't a crabby doctor (and didn't need to be), the Spirit wasn't really seriously interested in settling down with any of his femmes fatales (and didn't need to be), and the comics weren't even close to Sin City with the inane sketchy red garbage to stand out against black and white (and didn't need to be). To boot, Eisner was always head and shoulders above the man who is barely a low-rent substitute for Hugo Pratt.
While the Spirit himself doesn't fare much better in comic form, given over into the hands of talentless idiots like Mark Evanier, such a widely-exposed release as this film should have been far better. There's no excuse for the bad writing and direction, hideous acting, and terrible visuals that make up this trainwreck of a film. It's so bad it's literally laughable. Please don't spend your money on this, whether you're a fan of the Spirit or not; it's not worth it if you're a fan, and nobody else would be able to wade through the gallons of raw film sewage to pick out the few commonalities with its origin.
Frank Miller is not one of them.
Barely passable as a comic creator, he is tolerable chiefly only when doing original work, not attempting to corrupt the inventions of other, better authors. This is made so palpable by the puerile, amateurish, and awkward scripting and stilted direction for the film version of the Spirit.
Part of what made the original comic so great was its beautifully-rendered panels, which evoked a kind of cinematic framing. Eisner's Spirit was very three-dimensional and tangible, it was easy to grasp, and its characters were neither oversimplified nor overcomplicated, they were merely people interacting in the situations that occurred. Miller's Spirit, on the other hand, is flat and two-dimensional, even in its blocking: many scenes have characters pacing in straight lines back and forth or tracing directly linear paths in the background, which makes it seem like a shooting gallery at a carnival and certainly does not indicate the depths of an actual three-dimensional space. It seems a step backwards, in fact, from the deep and realistic dimensions of Eisner's original, to Miller's inexplicably flattened world.
Basically this is just Sin City with the names of the Spirit characters and some vague external resemblance to them. It's clear Miller has never read a single Spirit story and has no idea who the characters are, and this is especially evident in the fact that he rips off several shots directly from covers of later magazines -- which is obviously where he stopped in his investigation of the story. Immediately we have the Spirit himself indulging in pretentious self-narrative, something he doesn't do, the Octopus showing his face openly, something he doesn't do, and Commissioner Dolan resenting the Spirit's presence, something he doesn't do. It doesn't improve from there, with each character demonstrating only the slightest of resemblances to the actual comic character.
As usual, Miller's homophobia is on full display here, and as usual, his obsession with prostitutes makes its way into not only the plot, but also the narrative, more times than really are necessary or welcome. His fixation on graphic violence is also inconsistent with the original Spirit tales, and the actions in the first ten minutes alone completely fly in the face of the source material.
The acting is atrocious as well, which is surprising considering the level of talent of most of the cast. From the first character we see, a pretentious and obnoxious embodiment of "Death", the acting is strictly bottom-of-the-barrel. Shouldn't Death be slightly jarring or imposing, and not have all the gravitas and pathos of a preschool holiday pageant? It doesn't improve at all from there, with each and every subsequent character worse than the previous. All of the actors involved in the production come off as if they were under the impression that the final filmed scene was just a casual take, and a joke at that; in several scenes, the actors involved seem to be openly and obviously intoxicated. That's fine if you're good enough to pull it off (Michael Caine in Jaws: The Revenge comes to mind as doing a surprisingly good job acting despite being clearly drunk out of his mind), but nobody in this cast is. Samuel Jackson should be good, but he's horrifyingly bad here, and it seems that after the ridiculous Snakes on a Plane, he can only give a token effort. The only actor in this who does even a passable job is Arthur the Cat, and if I were him, I'd be looking for another agent.
The flashback with the jarringly modernistic teenagers (no better actors than their elders, I might add) attempting to look "retro" shattered any last few vestiges of the setting. Miller saw fit to condense the flashback into an unnatural mass of interactions that demolished any hope of sympathy for the characters, especially with our young Denny Colt seeming more concerned that Sand Saref didn't enjoy life in poverty in their disgusting urban hole than the fact that she only just found out that her father had just been killed.
It's always breathtaking to me how needlessly overcomplicated the script was in this, when in the original it was usually just as simple as "the Spirit solves a mystery and fights some bad guys", with liberal doses of humor and some usually well-aimed social commentary. Ellen Dolan wasn't a crabby doctor (and didn't need to be), the Spirit wasn't really seriously interested in settling down with any of his femmes fatales (and didn't need to be), and the comics weren't even close to Sin City with the inane sketchy red garbage to stand out against black and white (and didn't need to be). To boot, Eisner was always head and shoulders above the man who is barely a low-rent substitute for Hugo Pratt.
While the Spirit himself doesn't fare much better in comic form, given over into the hands of talentless idiots like Mark Evanier, such a widely-exposed release as this film should have been far better. There's no excuse for the bad writing and direction, hideous acting, and terrible visuals that make up this trainwreck of a film. It's so bad it's literally laughable. Please don't spend your money on this, whether you're a fan of the Spirit or not; it's not worth it if you're a fan, and nobody else would be able to wade through the gallons of raw film sewage to pick out the few commonalities with its origin.