Early on, The Spirit is asked by a damsel in distress, "what are you?" The whole way through the movie, it's all about The Spirit figuring out the answer to that question... while looking good and dashing through monochromatic scenes provided by Frank Miller. Gabriel Macht's Spirit has supernatural powers of regeneration, but nothing seems to be able to keep him out of trouble: women trouble, to be specific.

The Spirit's heart still yearns for the love he once lost, Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), who was once his childhood friend. Now, she appears lost forever on the other side of the law, as a jewel thief, who'd stolen something that The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sidekick, Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), want back. So, of course, that makes the fighting-crime side of Spirit's life complicated, as Octopus is a violent, dangerous psychopath; but the love side of Spirit's life might be in worse shape. While the aforementioned love for his childhood friend still haunts him, he's mixed up with The Commissioner (Dan Lauria) and hisdaughter, Dr. Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson of Cupid), pursued by The Commissioner's sidekick, Morganstern (Stana Katic of Castle), and other femmes fatale.

The Spirit finds itself torn between the serious and the campy, the insightful and the aloof, like a cross between the narratives of the latest set of Batman films and something less (Hancock, Hellboy, etc.) that blends more humor in with the suspense. There's something endearing about the voiceovers, battle scenes and the love of "the city" (that makes me think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) in a flashback to the films of yesteryear, whether it's Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne.

Underneath, there's the constant quest for what it means to be a hero, who we are on theinside behind the masks and behind the angry, hurtful words thatwe say. We have the constant tension between the Spirit who thinks he can't die and the conspiracy that we know that The Octopus is behind. There's the irony of the black Octopus dressed in Nazi swastikas and the two-of-a-kind references that remind me of Unbreakable (heck, some of Jackson's lines are the same in both movies). Oh, and I can't leave out the coroner bent on immortality with a seemingly unlimited army of Louis Lombardi clones.

When the main characters aren't talking, the movie sparkles. The dialogue is a bit trite, but the visual images, the depiction onscreen of Will Eisner's ideas with Frank Miller's Sin Cityesque interpretation, are rather entertaining, captivating even. I was left wondering how a Batman movie (think Dark Knight Returns) or Superman (Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale on the silver screen) with a better script might be. If something was this visually outstanding but it had a worthwhile plot as well, it would be defining.

But from what I've read of the Will Eisner version of the undead defender of the city, this movie seems to hit spot on. Of course, there's no horn section backing up the goofy pow action of The Spirit when you're reading the cartoons on the page. And there's certainly something amazing about the way that Miller's efforts (Sin City, 300) prove to be solidly entertaining, if not a little shallow.

Still, the quest of a man to return from the dead and hold onto The Spirit, even in the face of death, of Lorelai herself, captivates and entrances me, spiritually. If The Last Temptation of Christ wasa take on what it would look like for a Christ figure to be faced with an "out," away from the torment of sacrificing himself for people who didn't really care or love him back, then The Spirit bears itself under the same weight. The gospel of Christ, one of sacrifice, justice, and love (work with me here) breaks through the monochromatic world of The Spirit into full color. Now, if he could only stay faithful...

The spirit inside us all that brings us back from edge of self-destruction, giving in and giving up, that's the spirit of the film.