The tagline for The Spirit is “My City Screams”….well my head screamed after watching it.

The Spirit was created by two big whigs in the comic book world: Will Eisner (March 1917-January 2005), who wrote the original comics, and Frank Miller (who created Elektra, Sin City, and works with dark characters such as Batman and Daredevil), who directed The Spirit and adapted the original comics for film. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I encourage you to keep reading. Ok, so this movie has a lot of potential so let me tell you what it’s about.

A cop named Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) returns from the dead as “The Spirit” to help crime fighting in this dingy old town. He partners up with the commissioner to save the city from peril. The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sidekick, Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), have plotted to take over the city and then the world. Eva Mendez plays as a hot vigilante named Sand Serif (who is also obsessed with diamonds) who has something that The Octopus wants. We then find out that Sand Serif and The Spirit have a bit of a history together….well that only complicates things. Long story short, there’s some fighting, kissing, plotting, bad guys lose, good guys win.

No, I did not make up the story or the names of the characters. After re-reading that, this made me dislike the movie even more. As stated previously, I was anxious to see this film because it was a hybrid of two of the greatest comic book writers of all time. Well, I was sorely disappointed. The story was nothing new or exciting. The writing was poetic and sometimes drawn out. During the fight scenes, I was literally waiting for “POW”, “WA-BAM”, or “BLAM” bubbles to show whenever they threw punches. My husband said “this reminds me of the old corny Batman and Robin series that was on TV.” Agreed.

The acting was as good as it could have been. There are some great stars in this film, and I think they did as best a job as they could do (considering what they had to work with). The cinematography was done well and the visuals of the movie were kind of cool. By the end of the movie, once I got past the odd characters and projection of the movie, I found myself engulfed in the story and actually wanted to know how it ends.

So, The Spirit gets a lousy 1.5 stars. I think this film had a lot of potential, but it just didn’t cut it for me. I think if it could have been taken seriously a little more and made a bit more darker, this film would have been a totally different (and better) movie. So, at 1.5 stars, if it is ever on TV, go ahead and watch it…but if something better is on, do yourself a favor and change the channel.