While I cannot critique Frank Miller’s film The Spirit, not having had a chance to watch it, I can, however critique the critic S.B.Toh for some of their gaffs in the review Frankly my dear...
Yes critics are very often too subjective in their approach to reviews, and in this S.B.Toh is no exception, but clever they are not - sorry I refer to ‘they’ and ‘their ‘as I have no idea which sex S.B.Toh might be.
S.B.Toh makes an unjust, and quite unfair, comparison between the amazingly awful films of Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, The Name of the King, Blood Rayne etc) and the comic book adaptations of famous comic book creator Frank Miller (Sin City, 300, The Spirit). Why unjust and unfair? Frank Miller is ten times the film maker that Uwe Boll is, and the fact that Frank Miller actually knows his stuff when it comes to comics, as he created some of the most memorable comic books in their history – notably writing on the comic books Batman: The Dark Knight, Hard Boiled, Sin City, Daredevil, 300, Ronin etc.
But more than just giving readers a highly personalised diatribe on the weaknesses of the film in question – The Spirit, S.B.Toh reveals their dreadful ignorance when they say that the film is ‘Based upon an obscure 1940s comic”. Obscure to S.B.Toh maybe, but the rest of humanity has a very high regard not just for the character of The Spirit aka Denny Colt, but also for his creator - Will Eisner one of the all time greats of comic art.
The Spirit is so obscure, that it has been continuously in print since it first touched newsprint. I’ll not mention the numerous comic book companies that have kept The Spirit in print, so as not to weigh too heavy on the reader but they range from Harvey Comics (1960s) through to Kitchen Sink and DC Comics (2000s). Now, one would not imagine that DC Comics – the publisher of Superman and Batman titles, is too obscure. Nor, I would imagine, is the fact that DC Comics featured a Batman/Spirit team-up in 2007.
I don’t defend Miller’s film, but I do take exception to S.B.Toh’s poor research.
Perhaps S.B.Toh is not a fan of comic books, perhaps S.B.Toh is not a fan of films either, in which case perhaps S.B.Toh should keep his/her opinions, as verbal and as nauseating as they are, to themselves and save The Star readers from their endless prattle.
Message to S.B.Toh, critique by all means, but the art of the critique is in revealing enough of the film/book/CD etc, without bludgeoning the reader by your personal biases and without trying to project your (lack of) cleverness.
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