This weekend I Netflixed a film I knew better than to spend $12 on when it was in wide release – Frank Miller’s The Spirit. I’d seen the presentation for this film at last year’s Comic Con, where one previewed scene played so horribly to the audience that the producer was practically apologizing for it after running the clip. I knew I shouldn’t spend theatre prices on this turkey, but it immediately earned a place in my Netflix queue.
Most of the major critics took their shots at this one back when it first came out, so I’m not going to waste time with a broad review. Also, I’ve never really followed the Will Eisner comic upon which this is based, so I can’t speak too deeply to the film’s fidelity to the source material. Still even with the limited exposure I’ve had to the comics, I can tell that visually, the film looks nothing like Eisner’s vision. It looks more like… well… Sin City, which Miller co-directed with Robert Rodriguez.
