- Joined
- Jan 2, 2007
- Messages
- 1,067
I think I agree with Linkara (And if you don't know who Linkara is, I command you to watch his show!) regarding Frank Miller. The man needs to be committed to an insane asylum. I friggen' loved Sin City; the graphic novels and the movie (Although to be fair, I like the movie better due to its talent in the directors chair as well as the cast) but his work as of late has just gotten stranger and stupider and no more is that evident in his first gig directing solo "The Spirit." I'm not too familiar with The Spirit, I saw the *other* film adaptation (I have to question which one is worse.. its a tough call) and I've heard a bit about the comics and I will say I've always liked the idea of having his arch nemesis be nothing more than a pair of eyes and shadow-like hands; regardless I know that this is definitely not in any way related to the comics. The only way to really describe what this movie is is bat:cursing: insane. Its weird beyond belief, and not the *good* kind of weird. I mean weird as in something an ADD sugar addict with a pile of happy pills and LSD25 would come up with weird.
The movie basically throws up a bunch of hyperkinetic nonsense and fails to establish anything. This is the "plot" for those curious: There's a hero guy named The Spirit who makes me think of the main guy from the game "Exit" because all you really see is a black suit and a red tie. He comes back from the dead I guess and is following some sort of angel thing. After an encounter underwater, Samuel L. Jackson shows up claiming to be the Octopus (Seriously, with the noir style you could've just shown his eyes and hands and gotten away with it) by dressing up as a Mexican Yosemite Sam and shooting things up a bit. Then one of them (I can't remember who) gets a toilet lodged on his head and the Spirit and the Octopus yell at each other while two bald twins wearing shirts emblazoned with greek sounding names get run over by a truck and enjoy it. Are you following this? Yeah, me neither. In fact, the movie is so randomly paced, poorly made, and overtly insane that it was impossible for me to keep track. All I know is that weird image after weird image smacked me across the face and nothing really happened in the process. There's a toe with a bald guys head hopping around, Samuel L. Jackson dresses up like Hitler towards the end as well as reprises his role as Afro Samurai for a minute, and for some reason the bald guys keep getting murdered in some random fashion that I'm not sure is supposed to be funny or not.
There's really no true plot here. Nothing comes together and while Miller has a distinct visual style laid down, his direction is as sloppy as they come. Scenes just randomly flip about with no real rhyme or reason. It also doesn't help that the scenes themselves are incomprehensible and utterly stupid. The few times the film remembers its supposed to be an action flick aren't much better, because the action is poorly made and is usually bookended by something stupid and there are several times where the camera will stop looking at the action to look at those damn bald guys or some random event that is completely unrelated. You can watch this movie and say "And now for something completely different..." about every 3 minutes. About the only thing that I enjoyed was Samuel L. Jackson. Samuel L. Jackson is the king of overacting. He can get away with saying the most ridiculous things and still be cool or funny. Even though the material he is given is often pretty bad, he could raise a smile on my face a few times; especially his reactions regarding eggs. Nonsensical, but he at least pulls it off unlike any of the other cast members.
So yeah. What the hell. :confused1: I'm not sure what this film wanted to be. As it stands, its a nonsequitorialcomedyacidtripneedstobeputintoastraightjacketwannabeactionfilm. Its also proof that Miller needs to stay out of the directing chair unless he's aided by the likes of Robert Rodriguez. I'm not sure what is going on in that mans head, and I don't think I want to know.
5.0/10
The movie basically throws up a bunch of hyperkinetic nonsense and fails to establish anything. This is the "plot" for those curious: There's a hero guy named The Spirit who makes me think of the main guy from the game "Exit" because all you really see is a black suit and a red tie. He comes back from the dead I guess and is following some sort of angel thing. After an encounter underwater, Samuel L. Jackson shows up claiming to be the Octopus (Seriously, with the noir style you could've just shown his eyes and hands and gotten away with it) by dressing up as a Mexican Yosemite Sam and shooting things up a bit. Then one of them (I can't remember who) gets a toilet lodged on his head and the Spirit and the Octopus yell at each other while two bald twins wearing shirts emblazoned with greek sounding names get run over by a truck and enjoy it. Are you following this? Yeah, me neither. In fact, the movie is so randomly paced, poorly made, and overtly insane that it was impossible for me to keep track. All I know is that weird image after weird image smacked me across the face and nothing really happened in the process. There's a toe with a bald guys head hopping around, Samuel L. Jackson dresses up like Hitler towards the end as well as reprises his role as Afro Samurai for a minute, and for some reason the bald guys keep getting murdered in some random fashion that I'm not sure is supposed to be funny or not.
There's really no true plot here. Nothing comes together and while Miller has a distinct visual style laid down, his direction is as sloppy as they come. Scenes just randomly flip about with no real rhyme or reason. It also doesn't help that the scenes themselves are incomprehensible and utterly stupid. The few times the film remembers its supposed to be an action flick aren't much better, because the action is poorly made and is usually bookended by something stupid and there are several times where the camera will stop looking at the action to look at those damn bald guys or some random event that is completely unrelated. You can watch this movie and say "And now for something completely different..." about every 3 minutes. About the only thing that I enjoyed was Samuel L. Jackson. Samuel L. Jackson is the king of overacting. He can get away with saying the most ridiculous things and still be cool or funny. Even though the material he is given is often pretty bad, he could raise a smile on my face a few times; especially his reactions regarding eggs. Nonsensical, but he at least pulls it off unlike any of the other cast members.
So yeah. What the hell. :confused1: I'm not sure what this film wanted to be. As it stands, its a nonsequitorialcomedyacidtripneedstobeputintoastraightjacketwannabeactionfilm. Its also proof that Miller needs to stay out of the directing chair unless he's aided by the likes of Robert Rodriguez. I'm not sure what is going on in that mans head, and I don't think I want to know.
5.0/10
