Last night Darion and I braved the crappy LA weather to make our way out to Grauman’s Chinese Theater for the Hollywood premiere of The Spirit. Since we are both big fans of Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) we were very excited to be invited to attend last night’s event:

Now … the movie … I have to say that folks coming out to see another Sin City are likely to be disappointed. The Spirit is based on a comic book that was created around the time that Superman and Batman were and deffo has that noir feeling. Because it is a hero that hasn’t had 50+ years to develop and evolve into a modern, “cool” incarnation there is a bit of corniness that comes across in the film. I understand that some of the characters have been changed from their original comic book versions (I suspect in an attempt to make them work better in a 2-hour film) but I don’t think they were quite developed properly. The villains came off as over-the-top ridiculous rather than dangerous or scary. The height of the over-the-topness came when all the Nazi/Hitler imagery showed up in The Octopus‘s lair (main villain, played by Samuel L. Jackson). I’m sure those images must’ve been used in the comic books otherwise it makes no sense that they would be included in this film version … even still, they seemed really out of place and, IMHO, in very bad taste. I wasn’t too keen on some of the dialog either but, again, the film has that noir feeling where the convo isn’t as punchy as we are used to. The movie had that old fashioned feel that might turn off some people. That said, the visuals and cinematography were amazing — you can deffo tell it was a Frank Miller film. The performances by Eva Mendes (Sand Serif) and Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) were the shining beacons thruout this movie. Eva just looked the the epitome of female perfection (which is usually how women are portrayed in comic books) come to life. Gabriel was an excellent hero and is likely to secure a lot more work in Hollywood as a result of this film. Scarlett Johansson, on the other hand, looked great but didn’t really do it for me in this movie. I couldn’t tell if she was supposed to be sinister or evil or just a bored schoolgirl hanging with a supervillian. She was a bit of a disappointment for me. Because there are many things that don’t translate well from the comics to the movie, I wasn’t totally in love with The Spirit but I was absolutely entertained and I think that fans of Frank Miller may love it. I understand that there are a lot of negative reviews coming out for this film and I guess I can see their point. There is a great movie in The Spirit, I’m just not sure it was brought out enough so that people can necessarily feel it.

But, we did have a great time last night … the afterparty was really fun … most of the celebs hung around afterward to celebrate the film’s release:

And we did get to meet some of them:

Eva Mendes was such a sweetheart but Jaime King was a total doll … she was so sweet to us and confessed that she accidentally ripped her dress earlier in the night and that her friend Rosario Dawson had to fix it for her. Honestly, you’d've never known the dress was damaged … she rocked it right! I think Darion and I geeked out the most over meeting Louis Lombardi who plays a henchman in The Spirit but previously played Edgar Stiles on 24. I recall sadly when Edgar Peaced the Spork Out on the show back in 2006 … he was one of my fave characters. It was really fun getting to meet him.

We had a very cool night … I have to give a shoutout to Pink reader Natalie who I got to meet last night (she is pictured above) and I have to send out all my love to the Danielles for taking such great care of us last night. We had a blast.

Tonight, I’m having a holiday dinner with Mike and Jill before they jet off to Miami for the holidays and then afterward I’m meeting up with Alek and Darion for another Xmas party. Tonight looks bizzy but fun!