BLU-RAY
REVIEW: THE SPIRIT
04/12/09
Frank Miller applied all
the knowledge he gained while co-directing Sin City with
Robert Rodriguez to his follow up solo project The Spirit, a
film that visually looks a lot like Sin City. However, while
the visuals might be up to par with those of Sin City the
story isn’t. The Spirit’s tale is just not as interesting.
In The Spirit, The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) much defeat his
nemesis The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) before he becomes
invincible. The Octopus with the help of (Pathos, etc) Louis
Lombardi, which has some of the funnies scenes in the movie,
and Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) are on a path for
global domination. However, we never feel this threat is
real enough as the characters are played a bit on the tongue
and cheek side. The Spirit on the other hand is left to deal
with The Octopus and Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), a childhood
girlfriend who might be working for the wrong side.
The plot doesn’t offer much in the sense of intrigue. The
most exciting elements of the plot where the origin story of
out how The Spirit came to be. However, the worst thing
about the movie is that Miller choose to keep the same style
of acting used in Sin City where the characters deliver
their lines overly dramatic with more tongue and cheek than
I can handle. This day and age it’s hard to get these types
of movies to work, audiences are looking for something real
and gritty from their heroes.
The film is done entirely using CGI and has a nice and clean
look, however they aren’t enough big set special effects
pieces. The only two that stand out are near the beginning
and at the climax. The look of the film gives it an almost
black and white look. There are scenes where the only color
is the red of The Spirit’s tie. Regardless, the movie looks
fabulous on Blu-ray. However, this is also the source of
other problem. The visuals are so nice looking that they
distracted from the movie. Take for example, the snow, a lot
of the scenes show snow falling and on Blu-ray the snow
looks so beautiful that I sometimes lost my focus on the
movie. The sound is also excellent, but be warned that
action scenes and gun shots are loud, really loud.
The Blu-ray disc has some pretty nice features starting with
Green World which describes the CGI techniques used for the
movie, Miller on Miller where we get more information on the
amazing mind of Frank Miller, a pretty cool alternated
ending is also shown, but in story board form, a History
Repeats feature where Miller speaks about Will Eisner the
creator of The Spirit and an audio commentary by Frank
Miller offering enough nuggets of info for those wanting to
know all the in and outs of each scene.
The Spirit Blu-ray also
marks the debut of the first LIONSGATE LIVE™ enabled title
for the studio. LIONSGATE LIVE™ is a unique BD Live based
menu system that delivers updateable exclusive content such
as commentaries, games, ringtones, wallpapers, trailers and
much more via a series of on-screen notifications and
widgets. The Blu-ray Disc also features Molog, which allows
users to insert and animate shapes, text, audio and other
graphics right into the film as well as post “blogs” about
the film to share with other registered MOLOG™
users. Unfortunately these features were not available at
the time of the review
Review By Brad Peterson
brad@smartcine.com
VIDEO:
Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) 1080P
AUDIO:
English 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio and French 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Standard Definition Digital Copy movie file for portable media players
“Green World”
featurette – Miller describes the step by step
process showing how he created the world of The Spirit. This
a very interesting feature for those interesting in seeing
how the actors have to act against nothing but a green
background. (22:53)
“Miller on Miller” featurette – Frank Miller
takes some time to talk about himself, his inspirations and
his city. (15.57)
Alternate storyboard ending with voiceovers by Samuel
L. Jackson and Gabriel Macht - This storyboard shows
an alternate ending where The Spirit doesn’t use a grenade,
but accomplish the same thing. This is a pretty graphic
ending. (2:37)
History Repeats - Frank Miller discusses the
genius of Will Eisner the creator of The Spirit. (15.27)
Audio commentary by Frank Miller and Deborah Del Prete
Theatrical trailer
MoLog™ - Movie Blog network
connected community and interactive movie blog tool set:
Not available at the time of the review
LIONSGATE LIVE™ enabled Not
available at the time of the review
RATING BREAK DOWN:
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VIDEO |
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AUDIO |
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