The Spirit + 300

Random T-Rex!

The screen adaptation of 300 is no more or less than an R-rated Saturday morning cartoon — G.I. Joe + T&A — and perfectly enjoyable on that level. The Spirit is a bit more ambitious and a bit less successful. The problem with Frank Miller's directing debut is I still don't know what the concept is. I'm sure Frank had one but it got muscled by goons somewhere between the storyboards and the screen. Our hero is supposed to be the spirit of Central City, the embodiment of the city's rhythm, so the movie should be about painting a living portrait of those streets, evoking that rhythm. But we never get a clear idea of Central City at all. What sets it apart from Gotham City or Basin City? Or is the Spirit an everyman in an everycity? I can't tell.

Things perk up only when the movie just gives itself over to cartoonish surrealism in the Octopus's lair...Casual seppuku and Nazi regalia and a dental dance of death...Scarlett Johansson packaged into an SS uniform, snapping her boot heels...Yowza.