MovieChat Forums > The Spirit (2008) Discussion > Do people not get it?

Do people not get it?

posted 15 years ago by god-king-kalu
71 replies | jump to latest

I don't know how people can't like this movie, I mean, it's a parody, you guys do understand that right? It's not meant to be 'good' just stylish with some cool visuals, hot women, funny one-liners and slapstick comedy. The only way I can see so many people not liking this is if they somehow thought 'frank miller! must be deep, shutting down amusement centers!' it's not particularly high energy, is it that you need a lot of loud people to make you laugh? dead-pan ..look it up...anyhoo did anyone else think the octopus's costume in his first scene looked suspiciously like alucard from the anime hellsing? what with the hat and the coat and the guns...no? I think there's something to it.

edit::
i mean san serif is a font for jebbus sake!

[–] Cobb05 15 years ago

I hated The Spirit. And I got what he was going for, but the movie was bad. He couldn't get good performances out of the actors, so it shows he's a bad director. His version of The Spirit was in the vein of Sin City. It had the same tone and tried to go for the same humor. But he didn't have Robert Rodriguez by his side to help get good performances out of the actors. No one was expecting Citizen Kane, but you want a movie that is watchable. No one wants to go to a movie just cause it has cool visuals and hot women. We want good stories and watchable performances. The perfect example are the Schumacher Batman movies. He went for style and left out substance. Christopher Nolan showed that you can make a good Batman movie that still has action and all the makings of a "popcorn" film, but also make it a good movie. Frank Miller isn't a good director. Maybe he can learn to be a better one, but we all know Robert Rodriguez did the heavy lifting when they did Sin City.

[–] PonyboyJones 15 years ago

Actually, Tim Burton showed you can make a good Batman movie.

[–] scrapmetal7 14 years ago

Bump this, do i. Some kid told me the other day he saw the Tim Burton Batman for the first time and he found it "old-fashioned".

Kids today....

[–] PonyboyJones 14 years ago

Well... tell him to go watch "Heat" and see what he thinks. It's basically Nolan's Dark Knight w/o Batman.

[–] archosman 14 years ago

Tim Burton's Batman has not aged well...

[–] PonyboyJones 14 years ago

That, like so many other things, is a matter of opinion. :)

[–] BrainGremlin 14 years ago

I love the movie but I will have to agree with this archos guy here. It feels extremely out-dated and cheesy in many aspects, and rather poorly written. I realized this only recently, as I watched the movie right after Nolans' attempts... I wish I had not done that. Burton's had never felt that bad before.

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...Screw ze clearance. Ve vill *take* that plane.

[–] ghost_hat 12 years ago

I think a lot of the negativity to the Burton Batman comes
from the horrible non-Burton sequels. In a universe that only
contains Batman and its superior sequel, I think they'd still be
highly regarded.

[–] BrainGremlin 12 years ago

Possibly.

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Sad story. You got a smoke?

[–] externaltestaccount 11 years ago

Jack's performance not withstanding I have to agree. I've been thinking the '89 Batman was badly outdated for quite a few years now. I think X-Men in 2000 changed the way comic book movies were put to film far more than Burton's effort. And there is a reason why I've chosen not to watch it at all in the last ten years.

[–] Strazdamonas 15 years ago

No one wants to go to a movie just cause it has cool visuals and hot women.

Excuse me, btu transformers rating shows exactly the opposite.

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

[–] ahaygood 15 years ago

If you're still trying to compare this movie to Chris Nolan's Batman than you may never get it.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] David_Blue 15 years ago

It wasn't supposed to be a parody. Will Eisner was a comic book genius, and the right way to treat his gentle, interesting, sophisticated story-telling style is respectfully.

[–] god-king-kalu 15 years ago

are you sure? the octopus traps the spirit in a toilet in the first fight, that's not intentional? that was a serious fight?

and your against satire in general? or only when something you like is collateral damage?

[–] David_Blue 15 years ago

god-king-kalu: "are you sure? the octopus traps the spirit in a toilet in the first fight, that's not intentional? that was a serious fight?"

Comedy has a place in Will Eisner's oeuvre, and satire too. That's fine. The ridiculous situations the Spirit gets into, like when he was hanging off the side of the building, are an expected pleasure.

But the difference between Frank Miller's harshly bombastic style of satire, just taking things way over the top and having the actors grind out hyperbolic tough guy lines, is too much. At that point, you're not going along with the comedy and adding your own touches to it, you're shouting it down in favor of your own style.

god-king-kalu: "and your against satire in general? or only when something you like is collateral damage?"

I admit, I'm not a great audience for comedy.

But I like the movie to deliver what's in the title. Frank Miller's Sin City was indeed Frank Miller's Sin City, and it was and is great. Will Eisner's The Spirit should have been more Will Eisner-ish.

Baz Luhrmann has a style of his own that's nothing like how William Shakespeare would ever have staged his plays. Romeo + Juliet (1996) is Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, not William Shakespeare's. Undeniably, William Shakespeare is more worthy of respect than Will Eisner, even though there's nothing wrong with Will Eisner.

I don't know why I like Romeo + Juliet (1996) and not The Spirit (2008). I should like The Spirit. I like Will Eisner. I like Frank Miller. I like babes, and specifically Scarlett Johannson, who was smoking hot as expected.I can go with over-the-top-ness if the script is sharp and the performances are great, as in Tropic Thunder (2008).

But even though I mentally "let Baz Luhrmann get away with it", with Frank Miller doing Will Eisner and me wanting it to work, it didn't work for me. It was like Michael Bay does Agatha Christie.

[–] scrapmetal7 14 years ago

Unfortunately, that movie would never have gotten made at all...

Frank miller just makes pornography for himself now. This was a doomed enterprise from the very start.

[–] rmyers7 15 years ago

I'm not sure that 'parody' is the right word here. 'Comic' is more like it. Dark, but comic. The source material was an eight page supplement to the Sunday funnies. The tone of the original Spirit was definitely jokier and less serious than 'straight' detective comic strips like Dick Tracy. The characters were exaggerations, and punning names like 'Sand Saref' were common. This carried through to the movie. People who were expecting another Sin City or Dark Knight were coming to the wrong film. The tone was something between Batman and Looney Tunes.

The movie had to find it's own way. This is the 2000s, not the 1940s. A lot of the humor and characterization of the source, wouldn't fly today. It was an honorable, loving and not fully successful attempt. A problem with the movie is that it did not fully reconcile the action with the comedy.

BTW, _sans_ serif isn't a font, it's a class of fonts -- ones with no little dingles ornamenting the letter forms.

[–] julietademarchi 15 years ago

It's a matter of opinions, I know. I liked it and many people didn't. The ones that I know didn't like it because they can't help comparing it to "Sin City". Maybe if they didn't do that and just watch "The Spirit" without comparing to anything else, they would like it a bit more. Just an opinion.

[–] laserdoctorau 14 years ago

satire or not; and i do appreciate satire; the film was still very uninteresting and overall boring to watch; maybe for a die hard comic fan is was good but your general it won't do much; some things just don't translate well to film; the only memorable thing was eva mendes backside

[–] jaseace 9 years ago

Haha that's what I said too on another thread . But alas! It was a body double you can scratch that off the list too

[–] ahaygood 15 years ago

To rmyers7,

how do you mean: it did not fully reconcile the action with the comedy?

[–] LunaFaerie 15 years ago

1940s Pulp Fiction with a sort of Noir-ey twist, I'd say...but I see where the OP is going with using the term "parody" in that it pokes fun at both the genres I mentioned - overuse of quippy one-liners, and chicago-type cops and mobsters slang and dialouge; not to mention the classic good vs. evil is always black and white and the flawed protagonist. :)

I wonder sometimes what Frank Miller would do visually with a Dystopian story...

[–] billqs 15 years ago

I get comedy, but the comedy has to work. Much of the comedy in the film just wasn't funny at least intentionally. The visuals were awesome, it had some good action, but it needed to decide whether it was an action film with comedy (like a good Jackie Chan movie)or comedy with action. It they were trying for the former they should have left a lot of the footage of the Octopus and his cronies on the cutting room floor. The humor in those scenes wasn't funny, killed the pacing of the film, and brought people out of suspension of disbelief that was needed to accept the plot of the movie.

For the one billionth time, Robin is NOT the mother!

[–] ChimpyMatlock 15 years ago

Sorry, but I'm in the "I get it but didn't like it" category as well. Clownish, poorly paced, and the actors didn't deliver the dialogue with conviction. With a different director, maybe it could work. But this guy brought nothing to the screen.

4/10.

[–] jwa007 15 years ago

I got it and I loved it. I stayed away from this in the theater because the trailer did not look promising, it looked like a Sin City rip-off. Just saw it today on DVD and really enjoyed it. It did maintain some of the quirkiness of Eisner's work and was interesting.

It doesn't really work like that!!!

[–] Nobody_Gives_A_Damn 15 years ago

Did'nt really work for me either. I do "get it", I just did'nt enjoy it as much as I had hoped I would. I suppose it had its moments, but thats all it was for me, a few interesting moments.

Keef, trying to make sense out of chaos!

[–] Sirus_51 15 years ago

A parody can be good, it can be very good.

If a film is go god awful that it doesn't matter if its a parody of homage. Then there is nothing to get. Getting that it's a Parody wont make it suck sweaty monkey balls any less.

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I trust people to be people. Everything else is fair game.

[–] nkeres01 15 years ago

this movie was beyond awful. It's one of the worst I have ever seen. I don't understand how being a parody excuses how bad it is. No one ever sets out to make a "bad" film as a poster previously said. That is absurd.

[–] swatkins-6 11 years ago

It's good that some people DO get it, and love this movie :)

[–] jaseace 9 years ago

How many shrooms did you eat that day?

[–] frankmilne 15 years ago

It's just crap. Like captain something and the world of tomorrow. just crap. sorry man you can like it and enjoy it and if it makes you happy don't let anyone convince you not to be... happy. That's a good thing. That';s a special thing. And the fact that something made this badly can make you so is special. Just most of the world isn't with you on this.

[–] god-king-kalu 15 years ago

that makes me sad! nooo!

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] mandlmosk 14 years ago

but sky captain got good reviews. IMHO I liked The Spirit, and so did several of my friends, as it reminded us of the Dick Tract movie which we also liked

That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] funkyfry 15 years ago

Just because it's a farce doesn't mean it's a good farce. I could go on the message board for "Caddyshack 2" and say: "don't you guys get it? It wasn't supposed to be a serious sports movie! It's a comedy!" It still doesn't mean "Caddyshack 2" deserves to exist really.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

[–] master_d 15 years ago

The Room and Troll 2 are hilarious films that manage to be so bad they're good. This film is nothing more then an expansion of Miller's ego that overinflates itself and spews all over the audience like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote after a wafer thin mint. For further evidence, read his comic of Robocop 2, The Dark Knight Strikes Back, and of course the infamous: All-Star Batman and Robin. He's become the George Lucas of comics, and this is from a huge Sin City fan.