Caffeinated Clint
By Clint Morris
Think having someone lay adhesive rope from your landing strip to your rear end is a joyous experience?
What about wrapping rope tightly around your skin so it grips your flesh?
Or maybe fancy having your testicles chained to the base of a trampoline whilst someone jumps on it?
Yeah? Well come on, down!
If you’re a sadomasochist, you’ll definitely want to check out Frank Miller’s The Spirit! Â I promise you, you’ll be in cant-walk-from-the-pain heaven!
The sad part? All of us could’ve potentially gotten off on this movie – if only Lionsgate had hall the gonads to fire the director.
It’s a superhero movie, based on a terrific little 40s comic series by Will Eisner! It’s the visual team behind Sin City – and is helmed by t’s co-director! It’s got an all-star cast including Samuel L.Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes and Jaime King!
As Corey Haim (drop ‘Jaw’ for effect) muttered in the unforgettable trailers for “License to Drive” – “What could possibly go wrong?”
Seems, a lot.
Take the boring bits of Tim Burton’s ‘’Batman” (and admit it, there were boring bits – bits that had you checkin out your watch, hoping Vicki Vale needed saving again soonish) – as well as that’s film score (I kid you not, someone ripped off Danny Elfman’s score! It sounds awfully similar!); the hammy eye-rolling performances of the ill-fated live-action “Super Mario Bros” (1992) movie, and a script that, if you didn’t know any better, seems to have been written by someone who was shown their pink-slip from “Galactica 1980” way-back-when – and you’ve got “The Spirit” – this year’s first contender for ‘film least deserving of a theatrical release’.
Proving he should write comic books – and not direct movies! – Frank Miller (he of such brilliant graphic novels as “The Dark Knight Returns” and “300”) gives in to audiences hungry for more superhero-action, following “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man”, a film that’s likely got as much razzle-dazzle but far, far, far less class. But, I suppose it does have a guy in a mask….
“The Spirit” tells of a back-from-the-dead cop (a dull Gabriel Macht; can’t believe Lionsgate signed off on this guy!) whose arch enemy is a merciless gangster known as ‘The Octopus’ (Samuel L.Jackson). Johansson, Mendes and King are the eye-candy – you won’t even remember the names of their characters upon exiting the theatre.
Miller’s responsible for this car crash – he has no idea how to shoot a movie, no idea how to work with actors, and seemingly no idea how to transfer words to the screen.
S&M parlors should really start playing this puppy in the waiting room. Patrons will love it! (Just wait, I’ll be quoted in a goddamn newspaper ad now. “[Cinema] patrons will love it!” – Clint Morris).
Extras
For those with a high threshold for pain, there’s a commentary by Miller and his editor, oodles of featurettes, an alternate storyboard ending with voiceovers by Samuel L. Jackson and Gabriel Macht, and a digital copy of the film. If it were a better film, one’d rave about the package!
