Quote: Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

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Quoth a friend of my fiancee: "Will Eisner's zombie corpse should rise from the grave and eat Frank Miller's flesh in revenge, except even Will
Eisner's zombie corpse would be too nice to do something like that."

Quote: Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

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Quoth a friend of my fiancee: "Will Eisner's zombie corpse should rise from the grave and eat Frank Miller's flesh in revenge, except even Will
Eisner's zombie corpse would be too nice to do something like that."

Quote: Ebony White in perspective




Eisner is sometimes criticized for his depiction of Ebony White, the Spirit's African American sidekick. He later admitted to consciously stereotyping
the character, but said he tried to do so with "responsibility", and argued that "at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English
and physical difference in identity." The character developed beyond the stereotype as the series progressed, and Eisner also introduced black
characters (such as the plain-speaking Detective Grey) who defied popular stereotypes.




In a 1966, New York Herald Tribune feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer wrote, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro
groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself derived from
another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into
it."

Quote: Well I saw it. It's hard to find the words on how bad this film is. I'll just name off my top five issues I have with
the film, and I'll even leave out my issues with the changes that Miller made to the Spirit:




5. Frank Miller has never heard of a storyboard - The movie is so uneven, that it's hard to tell what's going on and where. There's a few
establishing shots, but beyond that, it might as well been a stage play. All I can assume is that he drew a comic of the movie and he assumed that it'll
work as a storyboard. (It doesn't, by the way. No matter what Robert Rodriguez says.)




4. I've seen 1980's anime dub jobs that could recite a line more convincingly - To say the acting is bad is an insult to bad actors everywhere.
There's a very distinct and thick line between "hamming it up to sound cheesy" and "I can't act" and this movie falls squarely
into the latter. I do not know if it's Frank Miller's lack of directorial skill or the actors just walking through the motions. I'm suspecting a
little bit of both.) Sam Jackson is just like every other Sam Jackson character he's played before, except with eye make-up. And Eva Mendez... Look, just
because you look hot, doesn't mean your acting is.




3. The rest of the movie might be on the cutting room floor. - I deeply suspect that this movie was edited to hell and back. There's some moments in the
film (like when a cop gets decapitated) that I had no clue what just happened. Since Miller has never been one to shy away from violence, I can only assume
that such scenes were cut from the film to get the PG-13 rating. I assume. It's hard to be sure, since the editing is so poor and choppy in the film.




2. What the hell was that about? - Characters show up and leave with no explanation. There's this French belly dancer sword chick that shows up, does
some stuff and leaves. There is no purpose to her role. (Other than to stab the Spirit.) She could easily have been omitted from the final cut. And she's
far from the only one. There are scenes that make no rhyme or reason why they were there. There's this scene in the Octopus' lair where you're
not quite sure what the hell he's doing with the background or why. Hell, I can say that about the entire film. I'm not too sure why anything happens
in this movie... The plot is that minuscule.




1. The Sin City effect is done now. - I understood it in the Sin City movie and 300 didn't really have a lot of it. They used more desaturated colors,
than what Sin City and the Spirit did. It got a little distracting, every time we see the bottom of the Spirit's shoes, that they're in this
high-contrasted white, with the movie often switching to a white silhouette on black for certain scenes. It's distracting, jarring, and doesn't
really make for all that good of a movie.




And I'm not even getting into the changes they made to the Spirit concept as well.




I'm sure some critic or fan of the movie will say it bombed because of Marley and Me, Valkyrie or some other movie out at the time, like they always do
when a film bombs. But please... Make no mistake. This movie is a bomb, because this is a bad movie. I did not think they made movies this bad anymore. If
this film isn't nominated for the Razzies, I'll be shocked.