Judging by the early reviews of The Spirit, 29% on RT, Frank Miller has fucked this one up to an outrageous degree.

When the more positive reviews call it "forgettable" and say things like "One of the worst things about this movie is that it was written by Frank Miller." Clearly we have a problem here. The Spirit is NOT Sin City, but from the trailers fans of both will be clearly confused. The Stark Colors and Black And White have never been mainstays of The Spirit, it's a high contrast, bright world, one that's been killed and stifled by the bland and banal eye of Frank. As well The Spirit, while always having a strong Femme Fatale presence, is not Wall to Wall Boobs.

Here are some contrasting images to illustrate the point

This comes from Darwyn Cookes recent reboot of the franchise, which owning some reprints from the 70's featuring Eisner's actual work, I can say the reboot is pretty faithful in both art, tone and style.

Now here's the movie poster, anyone else notice a serious difference?

Want another from the Reboot?

And now compare this to a shot from the movie...

So yeah, I'm a little flustered with his now nearly confirmed bungle of the character.

He also gave us "The Goddamn Batman" this year, a complete bastardization of the character and initially started the whole annoying gritty anti hero thing with The Dark Knight Returns back in the eighties (yes it was a fine piece of comic, but Frank Miller started a bad trend that resulted in Rob Liefield).

Lastly the success of 300 has probably cursed "Watchmen" with it's horrible taint of Slow Motion and Zac Snyder.

Well, I never listen any movie reviewers. They suck more donkey balls than video game reviewers. Like Ebert. Man I hate that fat moron. Also, I have not gone to see the Spirit yet as my area is two feet deep in snow. I will go soon after I take my daughter to go see "The Tale of Despereaux ".

As for Frank Miller so far I thinmk he has done great. I loved both Sin City and 300. I really thought they were a great movies. So great that I bought them on Blu Ray. As for the Spirit I will post what I think of it here in this thread. If it does suck I will tell you so. That would be too bad, but it would not be the first time a good artist has produced shit. It happens to every director, musician, painter, ect.

I also loved "The Dark Knight returns" as a graphic novel. It was awesome. I have not read this new comic "The Goddamn Batman". Is it really called that? If so that is a shitty title to a comic.

What is wrong with the comparison between the comic pics and the movie pics? So his shirt is black and not white? The coat is solid black and not black/blue? I don't see a problem.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Sin City, but The Spirit is not Sin City, not at all, not in the slightest and shouldn't look or feel like Sin City.

PedroSteckecilo:
Don't get me wrong, I loved Sin City, but The Spirit is not Sin City, not at all, not in the slightest and shouldn't look or feel like Sin City.

Maybe it is that I have never actually read the Spirit as a comic. I generally don't expect any adaption of any book or comic to be 100% faithful. Hell, I was pleasantly shocked at LOTR and The Narnia movies. But if you say Miller screwed it up as an adaptation I guess I will have to take your word on that. I will judge it solely on it's merits as a movie.

Personally I think Frank Miller killed Superheros for his own ego and has never created a female character that wasn't a prostitute.

But then, that's just me. I still believe in Heroes.

the thing is with Batman is he's always been an anti-hero, it's just everyone portrayed him as some bright and great person. he's a vigilant

as for The Spirit, i know it will be different from the comic, haven't read it either, but it will also get ppl to read the original comic to see what it was like. which isn't a bad thing at all

cleverlymadeup:
The thing is with Batman is he's always been an anti-hero, it's just everyone portrayed him as some bright and great person. He's a vigilant.

Exactly. He is a crazy loon running around at night in a bat suit shipping all over criminals asses. He is one step away from being the Punisher. But that is all good. I would be Batman if I could. The only problem with that is that the cops, FBI, and National Guard would find me and kill or capture me.

I liked 300 so I can't claim to hate Frank Miller but I am not crazy about his writing.

I always preferred Batman to Superman anyway. Always liked the Anti-Hero. Although I did read a pretty funny comic about those two one day.

*Two people watching Superman. Superman, has a gun*
Girl: Why does Superman need a gun?
Man: Because Superman is a MAN!
Girl: Batman doesn't need a gun.
Man: Batman is a wuss...

(That's all I remember, I don't remember where I saw it)

If Alan Moore had done it, it would undoubtedly have been excellent. But Moore hates the whole industry. At best Miller's blunt, and at worst a hack...

Hooray for taking a single good thing and grinding it to a pulp! Then grinding it more until the grindstone breaks! And then... well, you get the picture. Yeah, Sin City was amazingly successful. So of course he's going to do the same thing. He'll keep doing it until it stops making money. Then he'll find something new to overdo. And the fact that the Spirit isn't as well known a character means that the mainstream audience won't care that he has completely bastardized it.

It does have that Sin City feel but they are not the same. I'm literally drooling in anticipation for this movie to come out.

I don't really hate Frank Miller. I'm sick of his rampant misogyny (WRITE A FEMALE CHARACTER THAT ISN'T A PROSTITUTE, GODDAMN YOU!), but I did enjoy Sin City quite a bit, both the movie and the comics. But he's certainly no Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, and I found the film adaption of 300 to be pretty damn stupid once I got over being blown away by the sheer amount of action in that movie.

I will not be seeing The Spirit. I admit, I was curious when I first heard about the adaption, but once I saw the trailer I said 'Yeah, no.' The Spirit is NOT about whores.

Correction, The Spirit WASN'T About whores.

I finally saw The Spirit yesterday and, guess what, I thought it was loads of fun. In my opinion it owed very little to Sin City except in the colors and the manner of production, and possibly the over-the-top characters. One minutes into the first fight scene I realized Miller was playing this one for laughs, in a sort of weirdly-cool or crazy-awesome way. It's not all hard boiled.
Honestly, go see it. Watching Samuel "BAMF" Jackson chew the scenery as a plainly batshit crazy villain was worth the ticket alone.

The_root_of_all_evil:
Personally I think Frank Miller killed Superheros for his own ego and has never created a female character that wasn't a prostitute.

But then, that's just me. I still believe in Heroes.

It does seem that way. I still believe in heroes too.

I think Frank Miller started off on the right road with Batman. Hell, Year One and The Dark Knight Returns are two of my favourite comics ever. I think we can simply sum up where Frank Miller went wrong with the following:

I'm mean really Frank, what the hell were you smoking?

My feeling is that The Spirit (film) is what I wish Sin City (film) would have been. I didn't like Sin City (comic) and I do really like The Spirit (comic).

300 was good, as are many of Frank Miller's works.

As far as Eart 31/All-Star Batman & Robin/"The Goddamned Batman" is concerned, while I hate the chintzy writing, I do love the use of colors. Especially on the new Vicky Vale, WOW! :)

I think Frank Miller is just like any other creator. Some of his stuff is good, some of his stuff is not.

dont forget the racial stereotypes they edited out in "the spirit"

Personally I feel Batman is the only real hero out there. Spiderman and Superman just show up for almost every crime, from jewelry theft to supervillians. Super gets called out for Earths impending dangers and has his superhearing to know about every crime in progress. Batman only shows when his signals in the sky or when the cops cant handle the supervillians hence calling in the big guns... Batman. Let the ops catch the croops and let Bats deal with Two-Face and the like.

I don't hate Frank Miller but he only knows how to write 3 characters. Brooding anti-heroes, Femme Fatales, and Mustache twirling villains.