Review - The Spirit

The Spirit has, unfortunately, been marketed as the bastard child of Sin City and [insert gritty crime drama/ film noir here]. What audiences don't realize is that Will Eisner's Spirit is actually one of the most notable comic book creations of all time. Eisner himself is the standard of excellence in comic book publishing and the namesake of the biggest award in comic book publishing, the Eisner award.
The movie version of his masterpiece is directed by Frank Miller, creator of other such comic masterpieces as Sin City, 300 and The Dark Knight Returns.
However, even with a pedigree as rich as this, The Spirit doesn't really succeed although it might have had it been presented a little differently to its audience. The Spirit is not Dark Knight or Sin City although that is what trailers make it to look like. What The Spirit is is an adaptation of a pulpy serial comic strip and the movie revels in that.
Frank Miller has done a masterful job of translating the low-budget, film-noir atmosphere of the comic book to the screen. Although, it could certainly be argued that Miller emphasizes style over substance. The acting is more than passable in an exaggerated, over-done, self-parodying kind of way and the story, though seemingly incomprehensible falls into place in a fairly expected way.
The movie is sexy, entertaining and beautiful to look at but it is also destined to be a failure. What Miller doesn't seem to realize is that people don't understand camp anymore. Nor are they familiar enough with the conventions of noir, detective stories to appreciate the parody. Additionally, people want grand superheroes with fancy gadgets and impressive powers, not street-level thugs beating each other down in the mud. It's unfortunate, but audiences don't have the attention span or the interest to invest themselves in something a little bit different. Thus, the Spirit had no chance of succeeding. However, for those with any appreciation of the noir genre or old-school superheroes, The Spirit might supply a reprieve from the endless string of summer blockbusters plaguing cinemas. For everyone else, The Spirit might be a bit out of reach.
However, it is a beautiful exercise in film-making and the long overdue treatment of a fantastic character by a true fan. The film itself is admittedly a bit uneven but the good far outshines the bad. It would be great if we got to see a sequel now that all the clunky character exposition is out of the way but I certainly won't be holding my breath.