Movie Watch: The Spirit

The Spirit is a completely ridiculous comic movie, shot in a similar vein as Sin City. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Where Sin City forces you into a cruel and harsh landscape, The Spirit feels downright cartoonish at times.

I can only imagine what moviegoers thought when they saw this film, which was heavily advertised as a Sin City follow up, complete with Frank "Dark Knight" Miller on board. It's easy to write the film off as simply bad, with the hackey and often forced dialogue, but I think any movie that goes out of its way to point out that hitting someone with a toilet is funny knew it wasn't hitting from the same ball park.

Instead, the film is one of those destined to be cult offerings - too campy for its own good and too buried in its own campiness to do anything else with it. But when a guy gets hit with a kitchen sink, you're supposed to laugh. The movie is easily more comedy than action.

Miller's directing works well on a visual level, but it does feel like he was struggling with his actors at times (who may have been having a similar cognitive dissonance as the audience). Even at a cult level, the movie stumbles from time to time.

I can't say I recommend it, but The Girl and I laughed through most of it. If you watch it, just know what you're getting into.