2009 Comic Book Movies: The Spirit

U.S.A. Release: 25th December 2008

U.K. Release: 1st January 2009

Over near two months now as a new movie for 2009, the Spirit is a classic action-adventure-romance movie based on the Will Eisner character 'The Spirit' alias Denny Colt who's creation goes as far back as 1940 appearing in an American Sunday newspaper comics supplement section. These were then reprinted in comic book form through Quality Comics throughout the 1940's and have been taken up by various well known comic book publishers throughout the years and is currently being published by DC Comics since 2006.

It tells the tale of a former cop who returns mysteriously from the dead as The Spirit played by Gabriel Macht, a masked crime fighter working with the Central City Police Department to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. Sounding a typical superhero genre movie and it doesn't stop there, his arch-enemy, The Octopus played by Samuel L. Jackson has a different mission that he's going to wipe out the Spirit's beloved city as he pursues his own version of immortality by attempting to locate The Blood of Hercules in order to make himself immortal while at the same time trying to kill The Spirit. The Spirit tracks this killer from Central City's rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront and on the way facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill the masked crusader.

The ladies consist of Ellen Dolan, the smart girl-next-door; Sand Saref played by Eva Mendes, the Spirit's childhood girlfriend and jewel thief with dangerous curves; Silken Floss played by Scarlett Johansson, a punk secretary and frigid vixen; Plaster of Paris, a murderous French nightclub dancer; Lorelai, a phantom siren; and Morganstern, a young sexy cop.

Directed by Frank Miller, creator of 300 and Sin City, the movie has been criticized that although Miller is a superb artist and writer when it comes to comics and graphic novels, his skills do not carry over onto the big screen. The way Miller has chosen to tell the tale of the Spirit goes so out of the way of the original comic book Spirit character that Miller really should NOT have given credit that the movie is based on the Will Eisner character. It has been criticized that Miller manages to destroy sixty years of history in the span of 1 hour and 48 minutes running length of the movie. Though complimented on its art direction, it uses similar techniques of black and white style but with a little less colour that was used in Miller’s 2005 Sin City movie.

The movie has been considered as a 'flop' at the box-office. It reached No 9 in its first box office week of last week in December 2008 in the U.S.A. accumulating $10,305,501 and then just dropped off the top 10. Quite similar in the U.K. it reached No 6 in its first box office week of the first week in January 2009 accumulating £1,351,370 and again dropped off the U.K. top 10 the following week.

Perhaps a bad start to the year with this first comic book adaptation, let's hope that the year can only get better with the nine movies ahead of us :0( ??