30 Minutes of Frank Miller's The Spirit Reviewed 100
An anonymous reader writes "Thirty minutes of footage from Frank Miller's forthcoming The Spirit were shown to journalists in London yesterday. The description paints a picture of a highly stylized movie, somewhere between Sin City and Crimewave ..."
I've seen the trailers (Score:3, Interesting)
Gotta love the classics (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh dear, hype machine (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm, film is released in less than a month and journos are shown a sneak peak of 30 minutes worth of clips?
That sounds like the studio has seen it, it's not good, and they are shitting themselves. Best thing to do is get the hype machine rolling with some choice clips to the press.
Hell I could pick 30 minutes of clips from 300 to make it look like a promising film but when you watch the whole film it's pretty boring. My guess is this is going to be the same deal.
Shame, because I loved Sin City :(
Re:Oh dear, hype machine (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, I'd call it one of the truest representations of the ancient Greek epic storytelling style to ever see the big screen. Since I'm guessing that was the whole point, I'm gonna go ahead and call the movie really damn good, not just as an action movie, but as an expression of art.
Disagree? Go look at the fight scenes in the Iliad and watch the movie again with that in mind. The somewhat fantastic animals, the way the heroes were larger-than-life, the fights over a fallen comrade, the caricatured enemy--it is exactly the way you'd expect a somewhat-talented ancient Greek storyteller to handle the tale.
Is it Homer? No. The story itself isn't as good. Is it a story about ancient Greece, told with impressive fidelity to the style of dramatic art popular in that time period? Hell yes. If that was the film makers' goal, then I'd say they nailed it.
I'd love to see The Iliad done in a similar style, gods and all. It'd be glorious. The Odyssey's another matter, but then it always read more like a modern novel to me, anyway.
Re:question (Score:4, Interesting)
No. I find his work visually attractive but stultifyingly misogynistic. I hate the way it glorifies violence. I'm familiar with it mostly from films rather than the books, but the films seem to hew very closely to the books.
Sin City is the only film I've walked out of in disgust. 300 was beautiful but best viewed with the sound off because the dialogue was incredibly stupid.
Re:The Shadow? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a comic geek, I've read my fair share of Miller Stories and Eisner stories (Will Eisner's the creator of The Spirit, for anyone who might not know). I like both types, but form what I can see of the movie, it's not going to be Eisner's Spirit that we see.
I have no idea whether or not the movie is going to be any good, but it certainly will not have the wit and light-heartedness of it's source material. Eisner's Spirit was a goofily flawed hero who spent as much time trying to figure things out and getting into trouble as he did saving the day. Miller seems to have kept the getting into trouble part but tossed out any of the lighthearted goofiness. It looks grim and bleak and not very happy. Eisner's Spirit always seemed happy.
Just my impression from what little I've seen.