THE SPIRIT (D-)
I was looking forward to this movie for a very long time. I love Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes very very much. They are both absolutely gorgeous in every way, and both are decent actresses to boot. The anticipation ended as soon as the film began. Even Eva and Scarlett couldn't help this atrocity, because this is definitely not either of these heroines better roles. Both over acted their parts in my opinion. They play one portion of their role well, which is of course sex appeal. Oh sex appeal, good job Frank Miller. Other than that Frank all I have to say is... Boooooring! The boredom in part is because of how bad the script is. No depth to it at all. The dialogue between characters is more than just boring, its pathetic.
The movie begins as we see our hero define his existence to protect the city, and in doing so faces off with his arch enemy right away. Our introduction to Hero vs. Villain was not not short of them beating on each other, but its pretty much just mindless bashing. No unbelievable fight sequences like 300 or Wanted. So what does that equal?? In keeping with our before stated theme, mostly BORING action sequences. Samuel L. Jackson was good at parts, and bad in others. You never really get the nemesis feel from this film like the Joker in The Dark Knight or even a Syndrome from the Pixar animation The Incredibles (ok, ok, I like Disney movies). So even the struggle against our villain Octopus is BORING!
The concept of the film is good, and it definitely has a direction for this interesting story all the way til the end. Its just that getting to the end means you have to sit through this movie. The biggest failure by far is our main character, who had one gigantic failure of a performance. He is the worst actor in this film and being the main character is featured the most. His monotone voice never really changes. He never makes you feel for his cause, or even him as a character. I would say 25% of this movie was good, 25% was ok, and 50% was horrible. Unless you are huge Johansson or Mendes fans, this movie will totally suck for you. It isn't even worth one quarter of the $9.25 admission price for movies these days...wait til its on DVD. Even then only spend $1 to see this piece of crap from the Red Box at Mcdonald's.
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