1/5 Bad movie for a comic Icon
  by Accidents Will Happen (Mexico City, Mexico)
I am a great fan of the work of Will Eisner and mainly, The Spirit. In fact, The Spirit was first comic that I collected from first to last number that was published in Mexico in the end of the 70's.

When I know about the intentions to make a film on The Spirit character and mainly, that this was going to be directed by Frank Miller, I supposed that finally it would give a worthy tribute to Eisner and to his better work.

I went to the premiere of the film in Mexico and frankly, it was a brutal deception. I do not know if the intention of Mr. Miller or the producers were to make a sequel of Sin City (that aesthetically, is an excellent film) or what, but as for me, these ARE NOT the Spirit that we know on the comics. The film struggles with a weak insipid script trying to capture the black (and sometimes) cryptic humor of the original comic book and a really bad buch of actors (includes a totally numb and loose Samuel L. Jackson) in the leftovers of the special effects of Sin City.

Ok, Sin City was a landmark in the way to drive the aesthetic and graphic language of the comic books to the movies and mostly being respectful with the whole concept. In the case of The Spirit, it didn't happen, first of all, because the script betray the concept, the characters history and only remains the "humor" translated to a mind numbing endless dialogues.

I don't know what thinks Mr Miller about this film, but as for me, hope this will be the firts and last film of this Spirit saga ... i can't figure "The Spirit 2" ... and i don't wanna!

1/5 What Happened Frank?
  by picardfan007 (USA)
When I saw this movie I was expecting Frank Miller to make his version of the Spirit. I'd like to read what creator Will Eisner thought about this film. For me, I was expecting a plot. The Spirit of the comics had much more depth and integrity. This one was just a lot of computer special effects tied together with no story whatsoever. The movie didn't work for me on any level. Miller attempted to make it campy like the old Batman TV series of the sixties. It doesn't work! If I find this in the 5 dollar bin at Wal Mart I may buy it. However it's not the $14.95 or $19.99 that retail stores will charge for this.

5/5 It's NOT sin City or 300!!
  by Jason Roberts (Albany, Or.)
Reading what people are saying about this movie is sad. I've been a big fan of the Spirit for over 20 years now and I must say I LOVE THIS MOVIE.
Personally I think this style of humor is lost. The old school one liners, classic nior style(think Dick Tracy or the Shadow, even The Rocketeer) Alot of people don't get humor like this anymore. They want fast action and Horror. Not that's a bad thing, I'm a big Horror movie buff.
I just think it wasn't advertised in the right way.
So just take Sin City and or 300 out of your mind and watch this movie again. You might find something new.

2/5 Still trying to figure this one out
  by R McCabe
I read the comics back when they first came out. This is one of those cases when the original, in this case comic book is actually better than the screen adaptation.

2/5 Um...
  by Nick Colosi (Chesterland, OH, USA)
Well... um... wow... this one's tricky.

Clearly this is a movie that either you "get" or you don't. I didn't, it's as simple as that. The first fifteen minutes or so made me think that this movie was gonna be pretty good, when I watched the fight scene between the Spirit and the Octopus, but from there things got a little less than perfect.

The characters are all extremely one dimensional, and when I say that I mean that these characters have less depth than ANY other characters I've ever seen in any movie. We have the Spirit, who is basically a womanizer who can't die, we have the female "one who got away" concept, who is shallow and basically wants money and money only, and then Octopus, the "bad guy" bent on becoming immortal or something along those lines. These three things are basically the only concepts talked about within the dialogue. The movie has been marketed as all edgy and what not with themes about "breaking all sorts of rules" but that's not the vibe I got. I got the "what people really think like this?" kind of vibe. Someone once said "To call the characters cardboard would be to insult a decent packing material" and I see his point exactly.

The action is not terrible, but nothing is outstanding, and the weapons are anything but realistic. Other than that, the plot is just... somehow simple and really weird at the same time. The biggest highlight was watching Samuel Jackson dressed as a Nazi, seeing as Nazi killed black people. Other than that this is... well... bland, I guess is the word for people who "didn't get it" like me.