The Case for Exorcisms

Well, I went to The Spirit, and on the way out, I imagined what the people who made the film had intended.

I imagined they thought the film was going to be humourous. I imagined they thought the cinematic style of draining most of the colours from the screen would be reminiscent of Sin City without being quite so dark. I imagined the 1930s pulp hero style male character blended with some modern strong and sexy female characters would appeal to men and women alike. I imagined they thought there film would be edgy, but still accessible to a PG13 audience. And I am sure they imagined that letting Samuel L Jackson rant and rave with the ravishing Scarlett Johanssen as his sidekick would have to be a winner.

It's a good thing I have a decent imagination, because in reality, the Spirit sucked.

No, that is not altogether fair. It did have some things going for it: whatever one might think of her merits as an actress, one cannot deny that Eva Mendes has a spectacular butt. And the spectacular Sarah Paulson is always amazing value, though, in a bitch slap to audiences everywhere who thought she could rescue this film, she is criminally underused.

There is no point regurgitating the plot as it really didn't look that good going down in the first place. Slow, ponderous, confused by all the different types of film it tries to be, the Spirit looks glossy but is as vapid and empty as the movie's title would suggest.

Verdict: Guess what? This one is being panned. The Spirit doesn't stand a ghost of a chance before this judge. One and a half Caspers out of five.