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A Review of The Spirit
I’m really conflicted reviewing The Spirit because it was both a masterpiece cinematically and a terrible money in every other respect.
So let’s talk about the visuals, they were mesmerizing and I think even more effective then Sin City. The soft snow always playing about the camera’s focus gave a uniquely sense of depth within such a low key movie. The lighting was also splendid throughout, I really feel like they did a beautiful job overcoming what the senior VFX supervisor/second unit director Stu Maschwitz reefers to as greenscreen psychosis where all of the people on set get get the impression that everything they do doesn’t matter because it’s all going to be done in post. This isn’t the case the result is particularly good footage in it’s fantastic style. I loved the slow-motion pieces too, especially the early scene where the shot dry for underwater, it didn’t look like it was underwater, but it looked like a very stylized trip below the surface. (mild spoilers)
Then there’s the story. The narrative felt very hollow and inconsequential, I never felt like any of the characters really alive or could fit within the universe we’re peering into. The underlining plot points we’re painfully erected without giving us much of interest to go on, this was definitely the case with the Spirit and the Octopus’ healing abilities. The blood of Hercules, what, really? What does that have to do with the Octopus’ chemistry experiments? The other thing that seemed weird to me was that for a decent length movie I don’t feel like that much actually happened, I never grew board but maybe the lack of complexity and a clear story arc might be what left me feeling so ambiguous as the story continued to progress. I can’t recommend it enough because of the notes it gets right, but it’s no contender for movie of the year.
If you want further information on the cinematography and visual effects you should check out the fxguide podcast episode The Spirit and read Stu’s blog at ProLost.
