Latest Movie on Comic Series Not a Christmas Present for Viewers

This summer was a wonderful time for comic book fans. "Iron Man" in May, "The Incredible Hulk" in June, and "The Dark Knight" in July all breathed a bit of sorely-needed life into the comic book movie genre, and even comic books as a whole. They made being a comic book fan cool. Now, instead of wearing three-times-over taped glasses and navel-night tweed pants, comic nerds wear reflective sunglasses and drive awesome cars because of how cool their heroes have become. Then director Frank Miller ruined it, and it's back to getting your head flushed down the toilet if you dare to pick up a copy of "The Killing Joke."

"The Spirit" came out this Christmas, something I can't think about too much or I might start giving the movie too much credit. "You see," says my subconscious, all suave, "this must mean that it was supposed to be a giant turd with too many special effects and no substance. It was mocking the very commercialization of the holiday it was released on!" But then I remember common sense and the notion that justifying a bad movie doesn't make it any better, it just makes it a bad movie with a purpose. And a bad movie with a purpose is only a little sadder than a rebel with a particularly ridiculous cause, like ensuring that every person with blue eyes gets a free cupcake on Wednesday. It still has a purpose, and it accomplished what it wanted to, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was a bad movie.

So, "The Spirit" was terrible. If you've had your head out of the sand ever since its release, you won't be surprised to read this. But because just saying a movie is bad doesn't make me nearly as cool as I'd like it to, I'll sit down and take a few minutes to explain why it was so bad.

For me, the biggest problem was that Miller simply doesn't know how to direct. Oh yes, his name was stapled onto "Sin City" as a "co-director," but after seeing "The Spirit," I'm sure that the set of "Sin City" saw Robert Rodriguez doing all the real work while Frank ate all the free donuts and tossed off a few one-liners when asked. And there's no shame in that! It's fine for a man to find his niche in writing kickass comic books. I don't begrudge Frank for that. But there's a reason why you wouldn't take Michael Phelps and make him substitute for Tom Brady in a Patriots game, and the sentiment applies to Miller in the media world.

"The Spirit" is just oozing with that beautiful style that "Sin City" became so famous for, and that doesn't surprise me. Frank is a comics man: this is what he does. But when it comes to holding an audience for a set amount of time and expecting to guide them through a story by the nose, he just doesn't know what to do. The pacing is all off, the shots are awkward, and overall you feel like you should have just turned the volume off and played hardcore techno in the background instead to appreciate the sheer beauty of the visuals without actually having to watch the movie. That's not to say that we can excuse everything in this movie by saying, "Oh he just didn't know any better." Because just like a child giving a presentation on the Women's Civil Rights movement and calling Susan B. Anthony an old slag bitch, Frank Miller should have known better than to include a few things in this shining turd of a film.

Other than the bad pacing, "The Spirit" was plagued by horrible dialog, stiff acting and just plain confusing "humor." From what I understand of the source material, the original comic was very tongue-in-cheek, and any attempts at emulating that fell very flat. Any humor bubbling out of the gritty "Sin City"-esque visuals came across as confusing and forced, and most importantly, not funny. If anything, it made me feel sick and embarrassed for the actors delivering their crummy lines, although their stiff and emotionless delivery clued me into the fact that they likely agreed with me. Most of the time the characters didn't make any sense, to the point where every time something actually did make sense to me I worried that my sanity was starting to slip.

The plot was completely inane, consisting entirely of "Octopus is a greedy bastard, Sand Seraf is a greedy bitch and The Spirit is a pussy." I wish I were kidding. Every female character wanted to ride The Spirit's crime-stopping "shaft," and by the end it just felt like a nerdy high-schooler's way of compensating for four years of not getting any. Even the Angel of Death was totally into the titular character, and you know things are messed up when death herself is getting itchy loins.

So, in short, "The Spirit" was a train wreck. It was the sort of monstrous train wreck that from a very far distance almost looks like puzzling modern art, but when you get close enough to see the twisted metal and smell the vaporized blood, makes you more sick than anything. The lack of direction and real "point," as it were, did the whole picture in, leaving just a vague and glittery shell surrounding a pile of dung.