Is it wrong to enjoy the failure of others, dear reader? Okay wait, don’t answer that, let me rephrase: is it wrong to enjoy the richly deserved failure of others? To bask in it as if it were the warm glow of the sun, or drink from it like a font of every blessing?
Yeah, don’t answer that, either. You’re quite wise, dear reader, you know my heart’s wickedness even when I won’t confess it. Nonetheless, I cannot pretend that Frank Miller’s “The Spirit” debuting in ninth place this past weekend while being greeted with uniform scorn doesn’t please me immensely; you had it coming, Frank. Miller’s sporadic and overstated talent for gruff characters and bloodletting churned out a few worthwhile pieces of comic book fiction, maybe even a classic here and there, but his ego is a stray dog and it’s been waiting to break its leash, devour whatever skill he may have, and rip up our collective living room. Every time he does something creative recently, I feel I’m being served a subpoena which reads: “You will find this awesome. This is what’s cool now. Shower me with praise.” I think I’ll choose to be held in contempt of court.
It didn’t start with “The Spirit,” as comic book fans well know. Ol’ Frank was handed the reigns of “All Star Batman and Robin,” a headlining comic series with no ties to any other continuity, complete artistic freedom, and rock star artist Jim Lee on pencils. I can’t fault DC Comics for making this decision, I mean this guy put out “The Dark Knight Returns,” he deserved the right to run wild in Gotham City. I can and will, however, fault Frank Miller for losing his effing mind, then writing an absolutely terrible series of comics. Transparently intending to slowly morph the caped crusader into a character from “Sin City,” he blazed a trail for highly-paid professionals churning out garbage that wouldn’t survive on a fan-fiction website. You must realize, this man saw himself write Batman as saying, “What are you dense? Are you retarded or something?…I’m the g**damn Batman!” He looked at this happen, he nodded his head, and he actually decided other human beings should see it. “I will publish this,” he concluded silently. Clearly, he is in need of serious medical attention. We’re not even going to talk about “The Dark Knight Strikes Again,” which may be the most incomprehensible piece of fiction ever produced in Western culture.
It’s not that he doesn’t deserve to be where he is, I think Miller is a genuinely talented guy, but something about success has ruined his artistic output. Everything I see from him now is sloppy, self-conscious and stupid, demanding my love but never earning it. It’s disappointing, it’s annoying, and it almost undoes the good will he earned by reinvigorating my beloved Dark Knight in the late 80s.
And then came “The Spirit.”
I will not review this movie, because I have very deliberately chosen not to see it; at no point in the next few paragraphs will “this is a bad movie” be said. I will say that the trailers for this thing suggested a ludicrous, self-indulgent waste, born of a silver-tongued pitch to a studio head that should have been seen through. I might casusally mention that “The Spirit” looks exactly like “Sin City,” but lacks that success’ key ingredient, co-director Robert Rodriguez. I will also point out that the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer sits squarely at 15%, and that an omnipresent marketing campaign couldn’t prevent a ninth-place opening with a wheezing, coughing $6.5 million. I don’t think I’m the only person who sensed a masturbatory dud here.
Maybe the real reason I’m happy about Frank Miller’s failure is that I want him to drop off the radar, take off his stupid trendy quasi-fedoras and ties that don’t fit him right, and go back to real writing again. Success has made this guy’s work insane, and he needs a reality check so badly it actually hurts. When he’s in the right place, I think Frank has a lot to say and a real gift for saying it, but that place is not here.
0 Responses to “When Justice is Done”