Todd’s Movie Blog

I have to admit, when I first heard that Frank Miller was going to do a film update of Will Eisner’s groundbreaking comic book The Spirit, I didn’t think much of it’s chances.  Who had even heard of the character outside of devoted Golden Age Comics fans, I was the only one in my group of friends who even knew who Eisner was.  Plus the early sneak peak trailers made it look like just a reworking of Sin City.  But then I saw the new trailer and I’m getting pumped.  But it’s not for the visuals, which do look stunning, it’s for the dialogue.  Who wouldn’t enjoy Samuel L. Jackson whipping out a pair of huge guns and proclaiming, “I’m called The Octopus because I have eight of everything!”  But the line that hooked me was Gabriel Macht’s as The Spirit storming out of the hospital emergency room, having just regenerated from massive wounds that would kill an ordinary man and demanding, “Somebody get me a shirt and tie, and it damn well better be red!”  I don’t know why, but there is something about his angry insistence on the specific color for his tie that just cracks me up.  Plus I like any movie where the characters look super cool tooling around town while wearing trench coats and fedoras, it’s the retro in me.