This man must be stopped. I'm NOT fucking around here, people. He is the subject of the worst fall from grace since Lucifer The Goddamn Morningstar fell from the heavens. For those that don't speak fluent fanboy and only know Frank Miller as the guy who gave Hollywood Sin City and 300, a lesson is in order.
Frank Miller, at one point, was my hero. I wanted to BE Frank Miller. I didn't want to be a nerdy, rakish, 40something cartoonist, per se, but I did want to be so awesome my tear ducts leaked blood (which, I suppose, is debatable. I don't know if thats Frank or Le Chiffre, but whatevs.)
In the mid-1980s, the only man who could rival Frank Miller in the comic book industry was Alan Moore, and the only man who could rival Alan Moore was NOBODY BECAUSE HE'S A LIVING GOD AMONGST US, furthering my comparison to Lucifer.
Frank was a writer-artist of the highest order. His work on Batman, Daredevil, and later, his own aforementioned creator-owned series, are the stuff of legends. Picture Martin Scorsese in the late seventies. Samuel Peckinpah right when he made The Wild Bunch. Kandi Kream in Big Black Wet Asses 4. Frank was unto GODS.
Between Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City, Frank was unstoppable. Even a lame adaptation of his aborted Robocop 2 screenplay was well-received.
Then, something happened.
No one knows for certain, but Frank changed. DC Comics paid him a reported cool $1 million to write and illustrate The Dark Knight Strikes Again, a wholly unnecessary sequel to his legendary opus. After a lame, needlessly complex story and an excruciating release schedule, I figured I could write Frank Miller's weirdness off.
I mean, the man is untouchable, and he's allowed some missteps, right? The suprisingly awesome film adaptations came next, and who needs to hear more about them, right? Despite Frank's propensity for trite, unspeakable dialogue, his overly macho and eerily romantic stylings made for pretty fun movie times. Who hasn't seen Sin City or 300 oodles of times?
Then this happened:
DC Comics gave Frank free reign on the character that helped make him famous alongside superstar artist Jim Lee and he turned in a farce on par with Adam West's laughable interpretation of the character and Joel Schumacher, who managed to turn a legendary myth into a big-budget gay porno. This is the man that Frank Miller has become.
You see, I'm okay with that, though. All-Star Batman & Robin is nothing if not entertaining. I don't even rate Frank as a comics entity anymore. What worries me is Hollywood.
Those backwater rejects are always a few steps behind the zeitgeist, and, the fools, they don't quite realize that Frank is a whacko years past his prime. They don't realize that Sin City is over ten years old. They don't get that giving Frank Miller a budget and a camera is a dangerous thing.
For god's sake someone's already signed him up to write and direct a movie about Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Clive Owen's going to be in it. Do you see? This isn't just about comic book nerds. This is CLIVE OWEN. Frank can't kill Clive's career.
It's just not fucking right.
But that's not what my beef is either. Clive's a big boy. He can take care of himself. I'm worried about The Spirit.
When Will Eisner created The Spirit in 1940, he could have just been another masked crime fighter amidst of tsunami of disguised detectives and pulp characters. Eisner, a cartoonist so legendary they named the comics equivalent of an Oscar after him, turned what could have been a typical Dick Tracy retread into one of the best creative and innovative comic strips in history. Anything amazing you've liked about comics Will Eisner did it first in The Spirit. Seven pages in the newspaper every week and Eisner turned it into comic books' Citizen Kane.
So, sure, Hollywood thinks its a great idea to let Frank Miller make it a movie. He was actually friends with Eisner. He's an avid fan. Nerds trust him. Easy decision, right?
WRONG.
Frank Miller is turning The Spirit into some sort of a creepy Sin City back-up story.
Ignore the green screen (or try to.) Ignore the fact that star Gabriel Macht looks like he walked off the set of the "Ayo Technology" video. Ignore the fact that he looks like Dwight in a domino mask.
No, wait, don't ignore that. What the fuck, Frank? Stop raping the 1950s childhood I wish I had! Every fucking character doesn't have to be so superficially dark and gritty. Did you learn nothing from the early 1990s?
You think that's bad? Look at his "interpretation" of The Spirit's arch-nemesis, The Octopus, a character, mind you, WE NEVER SEE FULLY. A man who creates menace just by his silhouette, or the sight of his purple gloved hand.
Here's Sam Jackson as the same character.
I'm sorry. He's got to go. It's gonna hurt me alot more than it'll hurt him. That's just the way potassium chloride rocks. I don't want to unfairly judge what could be an interesting adaptation of a comic strip loved by millions over a few leaked on-set photos, but I just can't see how the Frank Miller of 2008 can make this work.
1986 Frank Miller? Him I'd give a chance, but this guy? I don't think so.
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