30 Minutes of Frank Miller's The Spirit Reviewed

An anonymous reader writes "Thirty minutes of footage from Frank Miller's forthcoming The Spirit were shown to journalists in London yesterday. The description paints a picture of a highly stylized movie, somewhere between Sin City and Crimewave ..."

Comments

How so?

[dlaudel]

Wouldn't people just sneak in to see it rather than pay?

Re:How so?

[Cowmonaut]

Oh be quiet you. Pretty much every pirated film is available as a DVD quality (or better) rip before or while it is in theaters. The issue is either with A) some of the people involved in rating the films or B) people involved in making the DVDs or C) anywhere else between production and distribution.

The people who sneak camera's in are just sad, and wasting their time.

I've seen the trailers

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I've seen the trailers, and if Miller does everything right, The Spirit could be an awesome work of film noir. Or it might suck harder than the new Guns 'n Roses album.

Re:I've seen the trailers

[objekt]

Or it might be somewhere in between.

I have a bad feeling about this

[genner]

This will be bad. I mean really horribly bad. I mean crawl under the covers and watch the Star Wars Christmas Special bad. You may have thought the Matrix sequels were bad but that's peanuts to this.

Re:I have a bad feeling about this

[Todd Fisher]

Why do you hate Life Day?

Re:I have a bad feeling about this

[ethicalBob]

Hmm.. Methinks thou complains too much...

Miller has only been credited as a Director on the Sin City projects, and now The Spirit.

Sin City was great, and a good enough adaptation of his work that he co-produced, DID take a director's credit and is now going on to make a sequel with Rodriguez.

So whose opinion is more valuable here: Miller's, who has created a huge body or amazing work, or the boxer-short clad /. troll?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Re:I have a bad feeling about this

[gad_zuki!]

I remember reading a Spirit graphic novel called Life on Another Planet many years ago, but I certainly dont remember lots of sexy ladies and hammy dialogue. Is anything in this movie actually a Spirit story or done in the style of Will Eisner? The Spirit stuff I remember is introspective and smart, not the flashy-trashy stuff Miller now specializes in. For a minute I thought this trailer was for a sequel to his Sin City movie.

Re:I have a bad feeling about this

[ProppaT]

I don't have any problem with Frank Miller's writing...he did some of my favorite comic book writing of all time when he worked on the Daredevil...I just have issues with the crappy movies. It reminds me of how MTV ruined The Maxx when they decided to animate it.

Gotta love the classics

[elrous0]

I just pray it's even half as good as the film adaptation of The Phantom.

Sin City was incredible

[olddotter]

I think I liked it because it was stylized and was really like a comic book brought to life. Not sure if I will like this movie as well, but I will definitely watch it to find out.

question

[nomadic]

Am I the only one who finds Miller really overrated?

Re:question

[jfengel]

No. I find his work visually attractive but stultifyingly misogynistic. I hate the way it glorifies violence. I'm familiar with it mostly from films rather than the books, but the films seem to hew very closely to the books.

Sin City is the only film I've walked out of in disgust. 300 was beautiful but best viewed with the sound off because the dialogue was incredibly stupid.

Review of 30 minutes of the movie

[internerdj]

I can't wait for the other 2.5 installments of this review...

Re:The Shadow?

[kalirion]

Don't forget The Phantom. These are all based on old comic book heroes, which seem to follow a certain pattern. I wouldn't be surprised if there were also The Shade, The Ghost, The Poltergeist, etc....

Oh dear, hype machine

[Smuttley]

Hmm, film is released in less than a month and journos are shown a sneak peak of 30 minutes worth of clips?

That sounds like the studio has seen it, it's not good, and they are shitting themselves. Best thing to do is get the hype machine rolling with some choice clips to the press.

Hell I could pick 30 minutes of clips from 300 to make it look like a promising film but when you watch the whole film it's pretty boring. My guess is this is going to be the same deal.

Shame, because I loved Sin City :(

Re:Oh dear, hype machine

[Fallingcow]

In fact, I'd call it one of the truest representations of the ancient Greek epic storytelling style to ever see the big screen. Since I'm guessing that was the whole point, I'm gonna go ahead and call the movie really damn good, not just as an action movie, but as an expression of art.

Disagree? Go look at the fight scenes in the Iliad and watch the movie again with that in mind. The somewhat fantastic animals, the way the heroes were larger-than-life, the fights over a fallen comrade, the caricatured enemy--it is exactly the way you'd expect a somewhat-talented ancient Greek storyteller to handle the tale.

Is it Homer? No. The story itself isn't as good. Is it a story about ancient Greece, told with impressive fidelity to the style of dramatic art popular in that time period? Hell yes. If that was the film makers' goal, then I'd say they nailed it.

I'd love to see The Iliad done in a similar style, gods and all. It'd be glorious. The Odyssey's another matter, but then it always read more like a modern novel to me, anyway.

Not a review

[liquiddark]

There is a difference between a review and a recap of the action. This "review" contains no actual critical discussion. All that the guy has done is recap what he saw. I'm sure it's interesting if you're looking for spoilers, but it's pretty much as unhelpful as you can get in determining the quality of the pic and whether or not it's worth seeing.

Re:The Shadow?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a comic geek, I've read my fair share of Miller Stories and Eisner stories (Will Eisner's the creator of The Spirit, for anyone who might not know). I like both types, but form what I can see of the movie, it's not going to be Eisner's Spirit that we see.

I have no idea whether or not the movie is going to be any good, but it certainly will not have the wit and light-heartedness of it's source material. Eisner's Spirit was a goofily flawed hero who spent as much time trying to figure things out and getting into trouble as he did saving the day. Miller seems to have kept the getting into trouble part but tossed out any of the lighthearted goofiness. It looks grim and bleak and not very happy. Eisner's Spirit always seemed happy.

Just my impression from what little I've seen.

Not really "The Spirit".

[reginaldo]

From what I have read and seen, it looks like Frank Miller is turning the work of Will Eisner into Sin City. Couldn't he just have done a straight adaptation?

I mean, there's a reason the award they give for excellence in comics is called the "Eisner Awards."