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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Idiosyncratic cinema on an incomparable Blu-Ray Disc, 2 Sep 2009
This review is from: The Spirit [Blu-ray] [2008] (Blu-ray)
Save the best for first: in pure sound and vision terms this is the greatest Blu-Ray produced to date. The picture quality shows sharpness, depth and contrasts above and beyond "The Dark Knight", "Casino Royale" and, in my eyes, even "Sin City". The sound quality is also in a class of its own: DTS HD Master Audio 7.1! The first BD I've come across with this quality, edging out X-Men 3's 6.1 effort for multi-channel HD class. I think most home cinema fetishists will have to buy this disc, whatever they think of the film.
The film is good, but very much an acquired taste. Contrary to many reports I had read in magazines and on the net "The Spirit" is free of bad acting, but the director has chosen and accomplished a very camp, tongue-in-cheek style for his mid 20th century heroes, and this sure as hell looks like bad acting until you size up the film's specific gravity. It is a film that takes neither itself nor the superhero genre seriously, endlessly self-parodying and always aware of the most typical cliches and how to play with them. If you just want a good superhero/comic-book flick, you may very well hate this and find it truly annoying. But if your sense of humour is generous enough you will find a lot of laughs in this film, and yet still a fair amount of the compelling and gripping; just know that the film will always let go of that grip and laugh as you fall a moment later.
As another reviewer on here states, an open mind is the key. Perhaps rent it first, if you can, it will not please everyone. But it is an entertaining and original film, think of it as a Charles Hawtrey to Sid James's "Sin City". And for anyone who lays great weight on picture and audio quality, it is a revelationary sensory experience. Great value too at the moment. Enjoy.
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than you might think!, 27 May 2009
The easiest thing in the world is to crticise something negatively, we're all good at that, so here's a more difficult to put together positive critique.Forget all the basically "What a load of rubbish" reviews. Ok it's not faithful to the original stories (how many movies are?), and he wears a black suit not his iconic blue one (a very major sin in some people's minds but it suits the muted colours better), but this is a comic story put onto the big screen after all. How logical do you expect it to be. It's about a man who's dead after all and can't die again, how realistic is that!! I have to agree, the Nazi bit came straight from the left field and some of the acting could be a bit better, but they are playing comic book characters don't forget. That aside I actually liked it... a lot. Sure the dialogue isn't up to the standard of Shakespeare, but remember neither were Sin City or 300; they used the original text from the comic books and were equally unusual; Miller wrote the script for this movie in a similar style. Let's be fair, the acting in 300 and Sin City didn't exactly set the world on fire, but really suited those films; it's the same here. Sure it's nothing like other comic adaptations like Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, Iron Man and so on, but that doesn't make it bad. It's just different; a little more arty if you like. I find that when people are very fond of something, be it a type of music, book, tv show or in this case movie, they can get a bit precious about things and become unnecessarily, sometimes vitriolically, damning of something which doesn't match their own idea of how it should have turned out (We've all seen Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons). Relax, open your mind and consider if you really would have done anything differently or better (and that's subjective remember)... I doubt it. The greenscreen documentary in the extras will explain everything to sceptics. A bold movie in my view, and if you're not precious, enjoyable... but hey, I also like progressive rock, so what do I know!!!
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15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spirited!, 14 May 2009
One of the lesser know comic book heroes, The Spirit is an enigmatic and subtle figure, who inhabits a world of mad scientists (of course), embittered femme fatales (naturally), and world-weary police captains (why not). The film, directed by Frank Miller, is very much in the mould of Sin City; there are sudden splashes of colour, usually red, but the action is usually drenched in dark and broody black, with surreal occurrences the norm and cartoonish violence a regular visitor. Samuel L Jackson co-stars alongside relative newcomer Gabriel Macht as The Spirit's nemesis: The Octopus, and his usual intense performance stands-out against the overall tongue-in-cheek feel of the film.
Overall this a great bit of escapism; well-acted, fun and neatly skirting superhero cliché, the film provides a welcome alternative to its more populist comic book cousins.
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