The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: The Spirit, Frank Miller's solo directorial debut. After Robert Rodriguez decided to give him a directorial credit to Sin City, he decided to go out on his own with this film, an adaptation of one of Will Eisner's films. 

• So, what was Death doing here? And whose cell phone is interrupting what she has to say?
  
• And can I ask why The Spirit wants to fuck his city?
  
  
  
• Dude just had to cop one last feel off that girl before he finally died, didn't he?
  
• And why are The Spirit's shoes just negative space?
  
• Evidently, Ethos and Logos had their uniforms designed by Dr. Seuss.
  
• One thing to note: apparently, in the original comics,  The Spirit is a 
  
• "I'm Going to Kill You All Kinds of Dead?"
  
• It looks like Frank Miller's using the same "digital backlot" technique that they used on Sin City. I remember that, in that movie, they used it to streamline the whole filmmaking process. Apparently, during the making of Spy Kids 2, he said "This is the future! You don't wait six hours for a scene to be lighted. You want a light over here, you grab a light and put it over here. You want a nuclear submarine, you make one out of thin air and put your characters into it." But it looks like Frank's using it just to be lazy. At best, it looks like they're just assets they used so they could act in front of a green screen. At its worst, it looks like, well:
  
  
  According to IMDb, this movie had TWELVE different companies doing visual effects and this is the best they could do.
• Homeless people always get hurt because they get free medical care? Nice to see Frank's post-9/11 right-wing views seep into this movie.
  
• And why are long dresses a status symbol? I can't be sure, but I'm fairly certain I can buy one at WalMart.
  
• "The Shiny Thing to End All Shiny Things."
  
• Sand Serif's remark sexualising Dick "Robin" Grayson is honestly a bit disturbing, especially considering that while he was making this movie, he was also making All-Star Batman and Robin, where he's canonically twelve. And we know this, because, at least for a while, in the comic, every time they mention his name, they also say his age.
  
• The fact that The Spirit is apparently a womanizer in this version (one who seems to have EVERY WOMAN IN THE CITY want to fuck him, including Death) reminds me that, in the comic, he's just a normal guy, if love-shy. Sort of like Batman, but instead of a Batsuit, he just wears an off-the-rack blue suit. Also, this version has a healing factor of some kind. So, basically, all the Comics version and the Movie version have in common is the name, the moral alignment, and the domino mask. Apparently, Will Eisner sold the rights on the understanding that they'd give it to someone who understands the original comic. I guess he used the loophole of taking someone who understands the original comic, but doesn't give a shit.
  
• You're just going from a dead serious monologue from the Spirit to The Octopus watching a little abomination that's just a miniature head on top of a foot. What a fucking tonal shift.
  
• Hey, crowd congregated outside where the Spirit is hanging, he can't jump when he's stuck on whatever gargoyle his jacket got caught up on.
  
• Huh. Appparently this Belly Dancer is a French stereotype instead of a Middle Eastern one.
  
• Black Nazis? Did Milo's ex-boyfriend strike out on his own as a right-wing grifter?
  
• Dead as Star Trek? Weren't they working on the 2009 movie around this time?
  
• Also, in addition to derailing The Spirit, apparently, the movie's version of The Octopus is even further removed from the original comics. In the original, he's basically The Kingpin, with extra side of Master of Disguise. He always wears purple gloves, and always keeps his actual face in shadows at all times. But this movie, he's a mad scientist, and an extremely vain one at that.
  

And, unless things change, next week will be 1980's Night of Horror. It was, at least for a time, one of the worst movies Brad "The Cinema Snob" Jones ever watched, and it's on Tubi. Maybe that will be a good place for the Deep Hurting Project to go back into hibernation.