When I first heard that Frank Miller was making a movie based on The Spirit, I could have cared less. I did not know at the time who The Spirit was, or that the film had been based off of a comic book series. I found him to be about as interesting as The Phantom (a fellow Sunday serial comic book hero), which is to say, not very interesting at all. However, sometime later and thanks largely to the late Scans Daily, I eventually learned all about The Spirit and who he was and what kind of comics he came from. Then a friend of mine reviewed the movie and got me interested in seeing it for myself, so when I found it at a Blockbuster that was going out of business, I decided to grab it. I’m very glad I did, because this film is quite possibly the best one I’ve seen since I’ve started writing reviews professionally here on FireFox News.

The Spirit is a crime-fighting detective who made his debut in the Sunday papers during the 1940’s, placing him alongside other greats of the Golden Age. Some of them remained continuously popular and managed to survive into the present day (Superman, Captain America); The Spirit, however, was one of those old heroes who seemed to fade from popular consciousness as the arising generation of superheroes eclipsed him, their methods more proactive than his plodding noir style. This isn’t to say that The Spirit was without a colorful cast of characters, or that he didn’t survive into the present day, because both are true. He had appeared in a few comics and even had a team-up with Batman some time before this film was made, after the character was acquired by DC. This movie is perhaps the biggest thing to happen to the character since his heyday, and it is nice to see some of the lesser known Golden Age characters get their dues.

Wide-eyed detective Danny Colt was a beat cop working to keep safe the streets of Central City until he was brutally murdered by a gangster. Normally that would be the end of the story, but somehow Danny awakened in his grave and clawed his way back out into the world of the living. He found that he could not be killed by most conventional means, which allowed him to get more down and dirty with the local crime than the Central City police could. Adopting the nome du gure of The Spirit, Danny used his old connections as a detective to brokerage a deal with the Central City Police that allowed him to roam the streets as a vigilante, attacking criminals that might be too dangerous for regular officers to handle. Lurking in the shadows of Central City are many dangerous ruffians, but none as dangerous as the man called The Octopus, who rules over the Central City underworld with untold resources. In the film, Danny Colt finally tracks him down only to learn that The Octopus is eerily like him; he also cannot be killed, and like The Spirit, he recovers quickly from injuries that would lay out a normal man. Frustrated, The Spirit puts all his detective work into finding a way to bring The Octopus to justice.

I must admit, the casting is both surprising and excellent. Gabriel Macht seems the picture of innocence as the title character, a detective turned superhero who genuinely wants to do good while at the same time being unsure of himself or what exactly he is. The Octopus was never seen in the comics except for a gloved hand, but in this film he comes out into the open and is portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson. His performance as the ruthless undying gangster is stellar and not without injections of humor that really give this film its charm. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it shows! Supporting actresses are Eva Mendes as Sand Serif; an old friend of Danny’s who walks both sides of the law, and Scarlett Johansson as The Octupus’ shapely and brilliant sidekick Silken Floss. The acting is wonderful; I don’t know how faithful to the original comic book characters the other actors are (aside from Gabriel, who plays a brilliant Spirit), but the actors really do wonders with making the characters their own.

Frank Miller lends his usual stylistic touch to the film, returning to his trademark use of color saturation and bolding out certain colors while leaving the rest washed out. It gave a distinct pop feel to the first film he did it in, “Sin City”, and it works well here as well, although the effect in this movie is much more toned down. The result is that there is a lot of green screen acting and in some of the scenes where The Spirit is moving through the city, it causes his stunts to not appear to be quite as realistic. That was the only gripe I had with the film, and believe me, it is a minor one.

The plot is excellent comic-book fare, like something you might expect to find in the pages of The Spirit in the old days. Because the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, concepts that may otherwise seem hokey in the context of the film play off well as a launch pad for the film’s greater entertainment vehicle. At the same time, it never becomes so silly that it completely loses track of what it is trying to do (although it comes close in a few scenes). Another interesting touch were the homages to other retro film styles Miller put in, such as the old kung fu and blaxpoitation films. Speaking of retro, the costuming designs are excellent, ingeniously combining a period look with the modern. Indeed, Central City itself seems ambiguously period and modern simultaneously, without explanation. Somehow, Miller makes it work.

Regardless of what you think about Miller’s previous films or work in the comic book field, this film is a must-see. It’s a fantastic homage to an almost-forgotten comic book franchise, filled with humor and action, and noir.