Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

adonis98-743-186503 Rookie cop Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces in Central City. The Spirit was just as bad as i've heard for the last 10 years i mean i can't believe how awful this movie was. That battle between The Octopus and The Spirit looked so freaking full of green screen that it was embarrasing and the perfomances? they were even worse. Definitely a superhero film without the 'super' in it but also without any actual good thing in it except the end credits when it finally ended....!!! (0/10)

Python Hyena The Spirit (2008): Dir: Frank Miller / Cast: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson: Color tainted laughable farce about abilities that go beyond normality. Director Frank Miller once again goes with black and white with tainted color and the result is exquisite but screenplay and acting are completely over the top and corny. He previously made the superior Sin City, which was made in similar manner. Gabriel Macht plays the Spirit crime fighter who cannot die. That's truly unfortunate due to the stupidity he will forever be surrounded with in this film. His spirit will live on in shame. Samuel L. Jackson plays the Octopus who searches for a treasure that can result in immortality. Jackson is at the mercy of lame dialogue making this one of his worst film appearances. Eva Mendes, in the one good performance, plays the Spirit's past love now jewel thief. Her change of heart is no surprise but she survives the idiocy surrounding her. Scarlett Johansson plays Octopus's female sidekick, and like Jackson, she is at the mercy of stupidity in one of her worst roles. Despite detailed structure the performances are as corny as the action leaving viewers unfulfilled and perhaps unimpressed. The special effects are the norm but cannot make up for the idiocy in the screenplay. The spirit surrounding this film is a negative one at best. Score: 4 ½ / 10

Phil Hubbs Back in 2005 Frank Miller hit the big time (in the movie world) with 'Sin City', a lavish living graphic novel with lush visuals. So clearly not one for sitting on his new found success he went ahead and made another living graphic novel which utilised the exact same visual style. Now one the one hand it worked because like 'Sin City' the film looked terrific, on the other hand it basically felt like a poor sequel of sorts to that better movie.The Spirit is another typically suave suit wearing crime fighter very much in the same vein as The Shadow, that now clichéd 30's/40's pulp comic/novel type avenger. Apparently his nemesis The Octopus created a serum that could grant people immortality, and he tried it on murdered police officer Denny Colt (The Spirit). Colt then somehow escapes The Octopus and for some reason decides to fight crime in his city, Central City, now that he is invincible. The Octopus now needs the blood of Hercules (called Heracles for some reason) to perfect his serum so he can use it...I think.The main problem with this movie being the plot and characters. The plot is...is...I honesty have no real idea what the hell was going on with this plot. Something about The Octopus trying to get a hold of these two trunks, as is sexy femme fatale Sand Saref, one containing the blood of Hercules and the other the Golden Fleece...eh? The entire movie is really quite a mess and didn't make much sense to me. The Spirit is suppose to be immortal I think, he can regenerate after being injured, yet he keeps having near death experiences and nearly dies on a few occasions. He does come across as quite vulnerable to be frank and has these dreams where the Angel of Death taunts him presumably because he escaped her grasp...its weird. At one point Colt wears body armour too, I guess this is too limit damage because it takes time to regenerate? I'm still not entirely sure why The Octopus wants this special blood seeing as his serum worked pretty well on Colt, and I don't know how the Golden Fleece fits into all this either truth be told.After reading up about this character I can see why many fans didn't like it and why it bombed. The movie is completely different from the original source material in virtually every aspect. The Spirit has a sidekick in the comics, The Octopus doesn't bring Colt back and you never see The Octopus in the comics, they could have done that easily so I dunno why they went with Jackson like they did. On top of that the plot is so convoluted and never really explains itself as far as I can recall.Other issues that spring to mind would be the simple fact this character is way too similar to other shadowy heroes. For any viewer who isn't a fanboy of the comic and knows nothing (like me) then this will all look very familiar and very dated. The whole facet of the character has been done many times, hell even his look has been done to death (The Shadow, Darkman). Running around from shadow to shadow in a dark crime ridden city full of seedy dark alleyways isn't anything new. This hero even has a police chief on his side who is the only person to know his secret identity...oh geez! Admittedly this character does date back to the 40's and back then this kind of stuff was fresh, but even so The Shadow had been around since the 30's so its easy to see where the inspiration came from. Unfortunately this movie just came along too late and has lost out, beaten to the punch by various other similar characters.Of course the film looks good no one is gonna dispute that. That classic detective crime genre soaked in heavy film noir visuals that have been amped up with the same use of digital backgrounds/foregrounds we all saw and fell in love with in 'Sin City'. As I've already said these two movies are visually identical with their colour palette and stark images. Thick blacks, thick whites, bold lines, lots of angles, inverted colours and images and the slight hint of colour on certain objects like The Spirits bold red tie. To watch and show off your new bluray player with...its the business, but again you could say its been done already with Miller's last flick.The cast are a poor choice right across the board with the exception of Dan Lauria as the hard nosed gruff Commissioner and honesty Macht isn't too bad as The Spirit, he looks good in the role. Again I firmly believe Jackson was cast purely because he's a big name and will attract a wide audience despite the fact he just doesn't fit the role. I will say the same for Johansson too...yep that's right, too many movies suffer this fate these days and Jackson is the biggest culprit.You kinda get the impression Miller was just riding on the coattails of his previous big success to be honest. Thinking that everybody would lap this up purely because it looked like 'Sin City' and that's all it needed to succeed. To a degree he was right, these visuals are delicious and I'd like to see more and this film is really nice to look at...its just everything else. It pains me to say but this is one of those films that I really wanted to enjoy but I just couldn't. If it wasn't for the fact it looks so good it would have been a complete write off.5/10

scr555 The Spirit is not only one of the worst comic book adaptations of all time, it's one of the worst films of all time. Although the film is striking visually, the lousy script sinks it virtually from the opening credits. It's not only poorly written, it's offensive. Why Frank Miller thought it would be a good idea to put Samuel Jackson in an SS uniform defies comprehension. This film is stunningly bad. Given the source material and the budget, it could have been a classic. What a missed opportunity. Also Gabriel Macht has zero charisma. Casting him is another reason why this movie stinks so bad. Don't bother. And shame on Frank Miller for desecrating this beloved comic strip.