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Originally a 1940s newspaper comic strip by Will Eisner, “The Spirit” followed the exploits of a masked vigilante who fought crime in “Central City” and frequently took on the criminal mastermind dubbed “The Octopus.” The Spirit would continue to resurface in later stories throughout the decades, even crossing into the DC Universe in the one-shot crossover “Batman/The Spirit.”
In 2008, hot off the success of “300” and “Sin City” and with Hollywood friends like Robert Rodriguez touting his talents, Frank Miller stepped into the director’s chair, attempted to bring “The Spirit” to the big screen with a cast that starred Gabriel Macht as the Spirit, Samuel L. Jackson as the Octopus, and Scarlett Johansson as Octopus accomplice Silken Floss. Miller wrote and directed the film and took pains to give it a comic book feel similar to “Sin City,” similarly filming the actors predominantly in front of green screens that allowed him to create a black-and-white world punctuated by bursts of color. Parts of the characters’ costumes were also animated, giving them an intentional two-dimensional look.
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Unfortunately, while the end result was visually stunning, audiences didn’t care for many of Miller’s other creative choices, particularly the Spirit’s weird monologues about Central City where he referred to the city as “my lover” and “my mother.” Most of the performances and fight sequences were very over-the-top — at one point, Jackson’s flamboyant Octopus smashes the Spirit with a random toilet while screaming, “Toilets are always funny!” Today, some fans enjoy viewing the film as an unintentional spoof on old-school superheroes, but overall, the movie was never able to find its audience.
