The Spirit (2008) 1/2

There's a rule with movies. For every great film there's its exact opposite. For every Dirty Harry there's a Pink Cadillac. For every Exorcist there's an Exorcist II. And for every Dark Knight there's The Spirit. In a year when comic book films have proven that they are viable for a great, decent story The Spirit blows everything out of the water and sends us careening back to the 1980's and the awful Captain America film and Dolph Lundrgen as the Punisher.

The Spirit is about an immortal ex-cop (Gabriel Macht) who helps the police rather poorly. His arch nemesis is the immortal Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) who along with his henchwoman Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) plan on doing some bad things. Throw in the Spirit's love from his past San Serif (Eva Mendes) and you get the overall picture of the film.

So where to begin. The script is crap. The dialogue is something George Lucas would write and sounds like drive heaves coming from the actors mouths. These actors must be good because they don't flinch when they say any of this bullshit. One part that sticks out is the five minute monologue by our hero to a cat. Roll your eyes kids. The story is garbage with everyone commenting that this movie reminded them of the Shadow. No wonder, that film was a piece of shit, too.

Frank Miller spends most of the film trying to be Frank Miller. That's the big problem. This film looks and feels like a cheap imitation of Sin City and makes you wish you were watching that film instead of this waste of time. What's the difference between the two? Sin City had characters with depth and dialogue that was acceptable under the circumstances. The Spirit's characters? We could care less. I was hoping the main leads could both be killed so that the damn thing would end.

The Spirit is a major disappointment. Frank Miller should stay away from all film equipment and stick with writing comic books and film scripts (Robocop 2?). Watching this film is like suffering through a long, boring, idiotic text book on comic lore. Let's be honest- if you want to go through the effort give us Sin City 2 and not this garbage.