By Peter K. Lam
The Spirit
Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas holiday! I went to watch The Spirit yesterday which was a lot of fun. I went into the theater without any big expectations. I never read the original The Spirit comic book by Will Eisner but have heard so many great things about the story. When I was working at Top Cow, my old boss, Jim McLauchlin (Top Cow’s former Editor-in-Chief), tried to get publishing rights to the series. If Jim was in pursuit of this, then there’s definitely merit to everyone’s claims.
So I watched the movie and was thoroughly entertained. It’s not your typical comic book movie. The Spirit is more of a dark police crime story than an ordinary comic book movie. For that reason the movie itself wouldn’t appeal to the general audience. The movie’s visual effects and directing style are interesting. It really captures this old time crime feel of the late 1920s and draws you into this strange but familiar world.
There was also plenty of satire as well. The movie makes many polictical, social, and literary statements. I found myself trying to analyze the meaning of everything in the middle of the movie instead of just sitting back and enjoying it. I stopped myself before going too far but just know there are a lot of material that will get your mind rolling. I’ll have to go back and watch it a second or third time to fully analyze The Spirit in greater detail.
