Nope, 'The Spirit' movie doesn't work in Zaire, either (Post Online)

All-star cast cannot save story
2009/09/04

BASED on the graphic novel by Will Eisner, this film is a prime example of the film makers spending too much on the visual effects and the cast’s salaries, and not paying enough attention to telling a decent story.

Given that it is directed by Frank Miller, the man behind Sin City and 300, you will know what to expect visually – although real actors are used, it has the feel of reading a graphic novel, complete with all the comic book violence.

Told in film noir style, it focuses on the rivalry between The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) and The Octopus (Samuel L Jackson), two immortals with super powers who regularly beat each other senseless, even if they are unable to kill each other. There’s also a sub-plot involving The Spirit’s childhood sweetheart Sand Seref (Eva Mendes) who has now turned evil and is seeking to get her hands on the Golden Fleece from ancient mythology.

At the same time The Octopus is trying to get the blood of Hercules. Don’t ask why, it doesn’t make much sense.

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Behind the 'Spirit' mask, a substantial career for actor Gabriel Macht (New York Daily News)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

BY ETHAN SACKS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

December 19th 2008, 4:00 AM

Gabriel Macht as the title character in the comic book-inspired film 'The Spirit,' opening Friday.

Who was that masked man?

The star of "The Spirit," opening Friday, may not be as recognizable – with or without the mask – as castmates Samuel L. Jackson and Eva Mendes, but the strong-jawed Gabriel Macht is ready for his closeup.

To get in the head of a character grappling with identity issues even as he wrestled with the bad guys, Macht plastered every inch of his trailer with storyboards and Xeroxes of the 1940s comic strips by Will Eisner that the movie was based on.

"His trailer was full of Spirit-phanelia," marveled Jackson. "He was dealing with his identity crisis all the time."

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The threads of THE SPIRIT (Mania.com)

Image by Strandell via Flickr

By Rob M. Worley
December 19, 2008

When we left the cast and crew of 'The Spirit' yesterday , actor Dan Lauria (who plays commissioner Dolan in the film) expressed his enthusiasm for the wardrobe he had in director Frank Miller's modern noir vision of Will Eisner's comic.

"I loved the costume you picked out for me. Right out of Bart MacLane's closet," Lauria said, referring to the actor who appeared in over a hundred classic movies including 'The Maltese Falcon'.

Of course the most important costume to get right were the threads Gabriel Macht wore as The Spirit.

"I worked hard on Gabe’s costume because at first it looked really foolish, until we spruced you up with the black outfit and everything," Miller told reporters but credits costume designer Michael Dennison for bringing the leading man's look to fruition.

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Spirit stars at abandoned warehouse (The Press Association)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Dec 4, 2008

The stars of comic book film adaptation The Spirit have appeared at an abandoned warehouse.

Rather than a Leicester Square premiere, Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johannson graced the red carpet at the Old Post Office in central London, ahead of the film's world premiere in New York next week.

Jackson, who plays The Octopus, said his character was the villain to The Spirit's eponymous superhero. "He's kind of crazy, kind of wild, kind of genius and he wants to be the biggest criminal in the world," he said.

Johannson and Mendes both play sexy female characters. Mendes, wearing a ruffled yellow Bill Blass dress and Louis Vuitton heels, said she enjoyed baring her flesh for the film.

"It's so fun because it's not me. The minute I think it's me I wig out but it's so not me. I'm playing a character so if I drop my towel and show my bum it's not my bum."

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NY Times on Frank Miller's "The Spirit" Movie: "108 overstuffed, interminable minutes"

By A. O. SCOTT

December 25, 2008

"... I’m just trying to figure out why, somewhere in the middle of “The Spirit,” Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson arrive on screen decked out in swastikas and jackboots. Nothing in the logic of the film explains it, but then, to use the phrase “the logic of the film” when talking about “The Spirit” may be to take the “oxy” out of “oxymoronic.”

To ask why anything happens in Frank Miller’s sludgy, hyper-stylized adaptation of a fabled comic book series by Will Eisner may be an exercise in futility. The only halfway interesting question is why the thing exists at all."

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Scarlett Johansson and company get The Spirit (National Post)

Scarlett Johansson image via Wikipedia

By Bob Thompson

National Post

December 13, 2008

Tobias Schwarz/ReutersScarlett Johansson, left, and Eva Mendes, will star in Frank Miller's the Spirit.

If you can't wait to catch The Spirit. You are not alone. For those who might not know, The Spirit is the Frank Miller live-action film version of the classic 1940s Will Eisner newspaper strip and subsequent comic book series.

Opening on Dec. 25, the movie arrives with lots of anticipation and a question; as in can Miller translate the 1940s noir images onto the big screen? At least Miller gets The Spirit. He was an Eisner friend. And his resume suits the challenge. Plus his intention to shoot the movie in the fancy Sin City CGI style made sense to just about everybody.

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Samuel L. Jackson Did His Own Makeup In The Spirit (io9.com)

By Meredith Woerner

Dec 17 2008

Director Frank Miller rewrote the Spirit script to accommodate ScarJo and let Samuel Jackson improvise — and even reinvent his character's look. We met the director and cast, and learned just how much they collaborated.

Letting Frank Miller gallop across The Spirit film set unedited opened the doors for the actors to do so as well. In a press conference for his newly released film The Spirit Miller described how one should adapt a comic to film:

As far as what translates from comics to film, I find that they are the better source material, and would cite marvel's recent Iron Man and Incredible Hulk as wonderful witty jobs at adapting them. I think if they get too presumptuous, comic book movies tend to fall apart.

That's all fine and dandy to say, Mr. Miller, but revelations throughout the conference revealed that you and your cast went a little willy nilly with changes and additions. Case in point: the lovely Scarlett Johansson's part, Silken Floss, was completely rewritten and expanded once the gorgeous ScarJo wanted in on the project. And that was only the beginning of the actors dictating changes to the movie.

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Samuel L Jackson's make-up fun (Metro.co.uk)

Samuel L. Jackson image by Getty Images via DaylifeFriday, December 5, 2008

Samuel L Jackson has revealed he enjoyed wearing make-up for his latest film role, in his words, "a little too much".

The actor, known for his tough guy roles, wears outlandish costumes, head gear and make-up to play villain The Octopus in The Spirit - a film adaptation of Will Eisner's comic books.

Speaking at the launch party for the film, directed by Frank Miller, Sam said: "Frank wanted the eight teardrops tattooed onto my face and the rest of it he kind of let me do, so when it came to eye colour or eye shadow or eyebrows.

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Video: Behind the Scenes on The Spirit (Ugo.com)

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The Modern Noir of THE SPIRIT (Mania.com)

By Rob M. Worley
December 18, 2008

When 'The Spirit' arrives in theaters on December 25^th, moviegoers will be invited into a world that comics-auteur turned filmmaker Frank Miller calls "modern noir." It's a Chandleresque place the evokes Hollywood's tough guys of old, but still holds the modern conveniences of the present day.

This is the cinematic realization of Will Eisner's Central City.

"I’m pretty much an encyclopedia of film noir," Miller told reporters at a recent press gathering for the film.

Actor Dan Lauria, who plays Commissioner Dolan in the film, is also a student of the genre and made it his mission to test Millers' acumen.

"I’m a thief. I mean, whenever I do anything I rob from an old actor that nobody remembers," Lauria admitted. "So, I told Frank the last play I did I was doing Richard Conte. Nobody knew who he was. So he said, 'Who are you doing in this movie?' And I said, 'Ah, you wouldn’t know him' and he said, 'No, try me out.' and I says 'Bart MacLane'.

"He listed every Bart MacLane movie. I couldn’t do one bit without him telling me what movie I’d stolen from."

"Frank actually told me you were doing Dane Clark," Gabriel Macht, who plays Denny Colt, a.k.a. The Spirt, chimes in. However, the leading man agrees that the modern noir vibe helped shape his performance.

"I think tone is really important and I think this film is a great blend of what Eisner and Frank was able to create," said Macht. "There is a bit of the Raymond Chandler gumshoe detective. I think if you are not honest in your approach to the material it could get slapsticky and it could get schticky. We didn’t go there. I think, what’s up there on the screen, what we were able to get is a little bit more extreme in the sense that it’s a comic book movie."

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Movie Review - Lionsgate's 'The Spirit' (Newsarama.com)

Frank Miller image via Wikipedia

By Lucas Siegel
18 December 2008

I went into director Frank Miller's big screen adaptation of comic book legend Will Eisner's The Spirit with few pre-conceived notions. Having only read a small number of Eisner's original comics, I didn’t know much about the character going in. But on the other hand, with the previews and trailers seeming to indicate this movie would be Sin City 1.5 in terms of art direction, I knew enough about the comic books to know that this style might conflict a bit with the source material.

Despite this conflict, or perhaps because of it, somewhere inside The Spirit is a great film. Its potential can be seen in bits and pieces all over the screen, making it all the more disappointing when it just never quite follows through on that potential.

First, comic book fans should know ahead of time that there are some major changes from comic-to-screen. Changes to characters are made to seemingly make them work better for a two-hour live-action movie, and possibly to make The Spirit more familiar to fans of other recent successful superhero films, leading to a few awkward moments.

Some of the acrobatics that title character performs for example just seem strange. Not cool ... not “wow” ... just strange. Most of these moments occur in the high-action scenes, and can pull the viewer right out of the rest of the movie.

These moments, however, were contrasted by mostly great dialogue by director/screenwriter Miller, and some effective one-on-one interaction between the various actors. The scenes between The Spirit and each of the film's bevy of leading ladies always entertained. Each of these women had their own unique strength and style, and they all stood out at one point or another as if they were the star of the film.

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Johansson und Mendes stellen neuen Film vor (Welt Online)

Großansicht

Berlin (dpa/bb) - Zur Abwechslung mal ganz brav: Adrett und hochgeschlossen zeigten sich am Montag die US-Schauspielerinnen Scarlett Johansson (24) und Eva Mendes (34) bei der Vorstellung ihres neuen Films in Berlin. Dabei spielen die beiden Frauen in der Comic- Verfilmung «The Spirit» des amerikanischen Zeichners Will Eisner sehr erotische Rollen. Der Streifen von Regisseur Frank Miller («Sin City») erzählt die Geschichte eines jungen Polizisten (Gabriel Macht), der auf mysteriöse Weise vom Tod ins Leben zurückkehrt, um als «Spirit» (Geist) das Verbrechen in seiner Stadt Central City zu bekämpfen. Filmstart ist am 29. Januar.

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'The Spirit' App Debuts on iPhone (Brandweek)

Dec 18, 2008

-By Becky Ebenkamp

To get into The Spirit of the film's Christmas Day release, studio Lionsgate and digital media company Big Stage Entertainment developed a mobile app that lets consumers swap the movie's stars Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes and others in scenes with their own 3-D images on iPhones, iPods and PCs.

The Spirit iPhone application, which is available for free at Apple's App Store and at MyCityScreams.com, was designed to appeal to the tech savvy fans of the cult graphic artist/film director, Frank Miller (300, Sin City). Those with the iPhone, can click on their picture, upload it to create a 3-D clone or "@ctor" and then shake the phone to get into scenes and still images. There are six animated scenes and 20 images to choose from.

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