That's "The Spirit"...oh, wait, no it's not.

Forsaking my unborn daughter's college fund, my wife and I went to the movies last night because I just had to see "The Spirit." It wasn't the preview that hooked me or the ambiguous posters long haunting the halls of Roanoke's Regal Cinemas. No, it was the fact that the same man - Frank Miller - was responsible for films 300 and Sin City, both of which I rather enjoyed.
As usual, we had the time wrong, so we were 45 minutes early and snuck into The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for a while. It was a pleasant, interesting tale when we left it, if not slightly scarred by the jerk who answered and spoke on his cell phone for a good minute.
Well, after 5 minutes of "The Spirit" I was so tempted to return to catch Benjamin Button somewhere in his 50s that I nearly asked my wife if she was equally game. A slight chuckle at one of the movie's lamer jokes dissuaded me, however, thinking that perhaps she liked it.
Let's get to the meat of it: why did it suck and how badly?
It sucked because - despite the "innovative" camera work making me think I was looking through a keyhole, it wasn't into the ladies' washroom but at an insipid and endless quarrel between two over-actors (Jackson and Macht) that was so slopped in water and tar that I thought I was watching "Double Dare" on Nickelodeon.
The script was weak, which is occasionally forgivable despite good writers growing on trees nowadays, but unless the comic explains why the whole concept unfolds more like "Pee-wee's Playhouse" than a film, I think Miller missed the mark by a mile or so.
I could almost understand what he was trying for: old-style detective story meets the sharp contrasts and sexiness of Sin City, but The Spirit encapsulates comic book on film about as well as Schumacer did in Batman and Robin, which I can't even say out loud lest I trigger my gag reflex.
So, do yourself a favor and skip this joke of a film - even when it's in the discount bin at Wal-Mart. Even then.