Fridae

The Spirit stars the Gabriel Macht as a murdered policeman who has mysteriously returned to the city as a masked crime-fighter known as the Spirit. He must now battle the maniacal Octopus (Samuel L Jackson) and his sidekick Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) who plan to wipe out the entire city.

Along the way, the Spirit crosses paths with many beautiful women (Eva Mendes, Jaime King, Paz Vega) who want to love or kill him�

Now comic-book film adaptations are usually directed by well-known action/horror directors like Sam Raimi and Robert Rodriguez. So it's interesting to note that The Spirit is the first of its kind to be directed by an actual comic artist - namely, Frank Miller.

Well known for his dark noir-inspired comic titles like The Dark Knight and SinCity, Frank Miller has obviously tried to infuse his debut film with his comic book aesthetics. But the results are mixed and very worrying.

His attempt to transfer the dialogue and picture panels of comic books to the big screen doesn't work. Telling the story in moving picture panels creates a very static and inorganic feel to the action - as if the characters are trying to break out of the panels but can't.

Characters say things like "Somebody find me a tie - I don't care what kind, but by God, it had better be red". This may be fine for comic books where the dialogue must be brief and overripe, but it sounds tremendously silly on film.

The Spirit is an interesting failure, a lesson on what should never be done for a comic film adaptation. Remember Speed Racer? Exactly.