Haven't been able to watch for "technical" reasons...
Added 10/1/2009
I haven't been able to watch this in my apartment because of the sound. I wish I could say something about the quality of the movie, as I heard its' good. But, the way the sound is mastered makes it unwatchable in my apartment. Dialog is really quiet, but the sound effects are ridiculously loud. I have to turn up my surround sound system significantly to hear what they're saying. A gun gets fired or some other special effect happens, and it makes a blast loud enough to scare my cat and piss off my neighbors. I'm not sure why movies are made this way... It really ruins the experience for me.
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Best to have low expectations...
Added 9/15/2009
I remember seeing the trailer for this film and telling myself that I had to see it. Unfortunately, I was warned early on that it was hot garbage and not worth the [...] bucks at Harkins. Now that it's out on BluRay, I figured it was worth a rental. Turns out to be a well spent couple bucks! The movie had excellent cinematography and beautiful women. 5 stars in that regard. Had to knock it down a little though due to a subpar script. overall, the movie wasn't bad, maybe a biproduct of low expectations. Worth a rent to see if you want to buy it. if you're into the comic book genre or stunning visual effects, definitely worth a buy.
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Not ok to rent.
Added 8/14/2009
You know the saying 'it's worth renting but not worth buying', well its not worth renting or buying. The movie was very obscure and did not make a lot of sense.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Worse written dialog in the last 20 years
Added 6/27/2009
The movie is one great disappointment and a waste of the great talent of the actors due mainly to the dialog and plot. The technical special effects are OK, but they do not save the movie.
In addition, the Blue Ray version seem to be having an authoring problem; when playing in the Sony BDS player, the first time you run it, it gives you an error message that it cannot play the format, it is after a second or third try, The Spirit (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy and BD Live) [Blu-ray] that it actually runs.
3 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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Going Down Red Shirt Style
Added 6/23/2009
Pretty much everyone is familiar with the red shirts from Star Trek. After decades of multiple pop-culture references even people who never watched Star Trek know who the red shirts are. They're the guys who go with the main cast on their away missions and are promptly killed to show us how dangerous the situation is. In J.J. Abrams excellent new Star Trek film we are treated to an awesome scene with a red shirt. As soon as we see him in the film we know what his fate will be. But the way it is executed is awesome. It's not just your average red shirt fare, no this guy goes out in an eager and spectacular fashion; litterally going down in flames. Yeah, well anyway when I think of this movie and Frank Miller I think of that red shirt guy. A spectacular and unapologetic failure. While browsing reviews on the internet before seeing the movie I really liked how one reviewer put it. He said something like, "The best thing that could be said about this movie is, after this I doubt any studio will let Frank Miller make another movie."
3 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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What a waste.
Added 10/1/2009
First off I want to say that I usually give movies the benifit of the doubt and I am normally not too harsh on movies. After stating this I must say that this movie is the perfect example of waisted talent and effort. The movie had a great cast of actors who gave the most awful performances of their careers. At no time was the story even interesting. Seeing that the effects are parrallel to Sin City, I thought this movie had to have some quality to it. This movie is the G rated version of Sin City. The special effects are totally waisted by a bad script and performances. I was warned that this was not a good movie, but this movie truly owes its audience an apology.
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Too... too... well, just too.
Added 9/12/2009
I have never read the comics upon which this film is based, and knew next to nothing about the premise of the story when I first saw "The Spirit". I don't really know if it would've helped though. It is, in the words of another reviewer, just plain weird.
The film is haunted by a bad story, really bad story, long periods of nothing happening, stereotypical characters, lack of character depth and development, making not much sense, over acting in the extreme, and seeming like a parody/satire although it's trying to be serious. You don't really know whether to cringe your toes in sheer embarassment on behalf of the otherwise so brilliant Frank Miller, or laugh your head off.
There are good things about the film though. It is visually very stunning, if a bit too reminiscent of "Sin City". There are some quite clever scenes, which makes it rather amusing at times, as for example the samurai scene, in which the bad guys (being lead by Samuel Jackson) are all dressed up like samurais, or indeed the nazi scene, in which the bad guys are dressed as nazis. The final showdown takes you back to "Hot Shots part Deux", or some such thing, and you don't know... well, anything, really.
I wouldn't recommend it, unless you are a bunch of lads with a fridge full of beer and nothing else to do. Then you can watch it as a piece satire and laugh and laugh and laugh.
2,5 stars.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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(Drumming fingers....)
Added 9/11/2009
This is SOOOO not like the strip itself in feel. Will Eisner's "The Spirit" was an original handling of the whole "Shadow"/"Batman"/"Dick Tracy" "creature of the night" crimefighter. The opening splash panels were always so elaborate and illustrative. The Spirit always showed a ton of compassion to his retrievable charges, like Bleak or Sand Serif, (Sand actually being an old childhood friend of his!) but the one antagonist he has that he doesn't show ANY compassion for, the Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson, doing his crazy coon routine again, is trying to become immortal by acquiring a serum that will grant him that power from Spirit's old childhood chum, Sand Serif, who has become Modesty Blaise, after a fashion.
The Spirit is Denny Colt, a rookie cop that is killed, but then brought back to life somehow to become the bane of the human vermin in his city. He works in concert with the chief of police, Dolan, and dates his daughter, Ellen. Dolan is not like the strip Dolan. Ellen is not like the strip Ellen. There's a new character that I never saw before, Morgenstern, who plays a Jimmy Olsen type role here. She's more or less just competent comedy relief.
The strip this movie is based on is as old as the hills....going back to the forties, and was originally issued as its own individual supplement as part of Sunday papers every week, until austerity programs got it canceled in that venue. Zip to the early seventies, and publisher James Warren, he of "Creepy", "Eerie" and "Famous Monsters of Filmland", falls in love with the strip and publishes "Spirit" magazine , a compendium of new stories drawn by Mike Ploog and written by Eisner. Actually, if you ask me, it took WAAAAAY too long for this property to be made into a live-action feature. I wonder what held it up.
This is not the first media version of The Spirit, either. Not long ago, (1987,) there was a TV movie done by the Fox network or someone adventurous, and THAT one missed the mark as well! At least they didn't have a version of Ebony in this new one. No, just the Octopus to perpetuuate an unfortunate ethnic stereotype.
Anyway....it could have been worse....there ARE some funny bits in here. The Octopus' cloned henchman are funny, as are some scenes with them and Scarlett Johannson. However, the feel of the old srip just isn't there, and whoever put Gabriel Macht in sneakers and a trench coat ought to be shot! And what is it with Frank Miller and near-monochromatic cinematography?? His D.O.P shoots too damned dark and drab for a lot of the movie to be enjoyed completely. A shame, since there was SOME potential here....
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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