Reviews

Review: The Spirit

Awful on every level

By PETER KEOUGH | December 23, 2008

0.0 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for The Spirit

Since we've now reached late December, it's safe to say that Frank Miller's The Spirit is the worst movie I will see all year.

I am not familiar with the Walt Eisner comic hero, and so I say this not because the film ruins a cult favorite but because it is awful on every level. Okay, the images, reprising the pseudo-noir-expressionism of Miller & Rodriguez's Sin City (in a PG-13 version), can be distracting. But the voiceover narration, the expository dialogue, the witless banter, and the portentous piffle bury them. It's like the corniest TV Batman episode ever made.

Gabriel Macht has all the charisma of the W.B. Mason guy in the title role of a cop brought back from the dead and now a superhero fighting evil, whose incarnations include Samuel Jackson as Octopus and Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss, the both of them putting in the worst performances of their careers — which is saying something. What really broke my spirit? A set-up for a sequel and the promise to "start from scratch."

Related: Review: Iron Man 2, Black and white and red all over, Review: Red Riding, More

Review: Iron Man 2
Maybe I’m just relieved that it wasn’t in 3-D, or maybe actor Justin Theroux (frequent David Lynch collaborator and co-scripter of Tropic Thunder ) is just a better writer than the law firm of scribes that pasted together the original, but Jon Favreau’s sequel to his creaky adaptation of the rusty Marvel standby Iron Man restores my lack of faith in superheroes.
Black and white and red all over
The most common problem afflicting video games these days is a deficit of imagination. So many releases look alike, sound alike, and play alike.
Review: Red Riding
The '70s were ugly enough wherever you lived, but to judge from the three 2009 British TV movies adapted from David Peace's Red Riding quartet (each novel named after a year between 1974 and 1983 — 1977 somehow got lost in the shuffle), nowhere more so than in the West Riding of Yorkshire
Review: No More Heroes 2
In the world of video games, one rule is ironclad: if a game is successful, there will be a sequel. Hell, sometimes if a game isn't successful, there will be a sequel.
Camera obscura
An acquired taste in French cinema, Philippe Grandrieux is an abstractionist who does narrative features, a post-punk artiste as comfortable making Marilyn Manson music videos as he is war-zone documentaries. But his three major features — which the Harvard Film Archive is screening this weekend and next — revel in a dangerous minimalism.
Review: District 13: Ultimatum
In 2004, Luc Besson's District B13 [ Banlieue 13 ] wall-jumped its way into our hearts by thrusting the urban acrobatics of parkour onto the big screen.
Review: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
That must've been one rockin' party the gods of Ancient Greece had with the hotties of America back in the early '90s, since they left a string of demigods with absentee-daddy issues behind.
Review: The Wolfman
Joe Johnston sets his remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic The Wolf Man in Victorian England, a fitting backdrop for a Jekyll and Hyde –esque tale of men battling beasts within.
Review: The Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D
There’s nothing more envy-inducing during a Boston winter night than watching a pack of surfers hit the pristine beaches of Tahiti. But beyond the warmth and beauty of the island, this film fails to deliver a cohesive message.
Interplay
Caitlin Berrigan’s 2009 video Transfer is simple and elemental.
Now playing — RISD: The Musical!
We all know RISD students like to paint and draw, but can they hoof it? Or belt out a show tune and carry a giant pencil at the same time? Well, yes, it turns out.
Less

Topics: Reviews , Scarlett Johansson, Frank Miller, Frank Miller, More

| More

view all

[ 02/14 ] "Cover to Cover," live album night: Lady Zen performs "Baduizm," with original set @ Big Easy

[ 02/14 ] Duncan Hardy Trio @ Bray’s Brewpub

[ 02/14 ] Trouble is My Business @ Portland Stage Company

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY | February 10, 2012
The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

REVIEW: JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND | February 07, 2012
I liked the tiny elephants and the Rock bouncing berries off his pecs, but Brad Peyton's sequel is as bad as the 2008 original.

REVIEW: CHRONICLE | February 02, 2012
Poor Andrew (Dane DeHaan) has more problems than any movie teenager deserves.

REVIEW: ONE FOR THE MONEY | January 31, 2012
TV director Julie Anne Robinson's insipid adaptation of this first volume in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series has more in common with Young Adult than with the average gumshoe yarn.

REVIEW: BIG MIRACLE | January 31, 2012
Taking a tip from the oil industry, Hollywood has started exploiting Alaska. Following in the tracks of The Grey is Ken Kwapis's take on a true story from 1988 about an effort to save gray whales trapped in the Arctic ice. Surprisingly, the film offers genuine complexity.