Do you guys have any idea how long my Netflix queue is? I’m not trying to brag or anything, but pretty much any movie  I have ever heard of, whether it’s supposed to be bad or supposed to be good, ends up on my queue. I’ve hit maximum multiple times and have to go back and erase some titles. That’s why things like The Spirit and Dylan Dog: Dead of Night end up arriving in my mailbox. When The Spirit was released theatrically, I had no interest. I heard nothing but awful things about it. However, being a comic book movie, it somehow made its way into the queue. I saw trailers in theaters for Dylan Dog, because it was supposed to get a theatrical release, but instead went straight-to-video. Still added it to the queue, thinking there would be a plethora of people interested in it. Sadly, both movies were hard to get through, and even though I don’t often do this, I had to shut them both off before they were over to get them the fuck out of my house.

If Samuel L. Jackson being referred to as “Octopus” or Scarlett Johansson having big boobs doesn’t save your movie, nothing will.

What I knew about The Spirit as a comic book was that one of my professors never shut up about it or about the author, Will Eisner, for any reason. I know that Will Eisner is really important to comic books, I’m not denying that, and I also know that Frank Miller had a huge boner for him. I also know that Frank Miller writes comic books, draws comic books, and does not direct movies. I have a feeling that what happened after the success of Sin City and 300 was that movie executives approached Frank Miller and said, “Hey, I know you have no experience directing, but do ya wanna direct something, anything, as long as it’s related to comics?”, and Miller’s eyes were replaced with dollar signs and agreed. I’m not knocking him or anything, because if someone offered me a shit ton of money to direct anything I wanted, and I could make a movie based on one of my favorite comics so that someone else wouldn’t have the opportunity to direct it, I’d do the same. Unfortunately, I think that if you take a comic book that was written in the 40’s with a specific tone, and have someone who has never directed anything attempt to do that over 60 years later, some things might not work. The characters and narrative were exaggerated and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, which I feel alienates your audiences who don’t quite “get it”. The film itself is exactly what it would look like if Zack Snyder took the Sin City movie out on a date, slipped roofies into its drink, then raped the living shit out of it. Every shot is either super-saturated blacks and whites, or are filmed in color, but with the saturation brought down. Don’t get me wrong, I love Frank Miller’s comic book work, but I think he should stick with that instead of attempting more movies.

I didn’t get this far in the movie so I have no fucking clue what’s going on here. Actually, even if I did get this far, I still wouldn’t have any idea what was going on.

Even though he was only in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World for a few scenes, the ones with Brandon Routh were some of the more entertaining moments of the film. Remember that whole part about the cleaning lady, dusting things, and the Vegan Police? HI-LARIOUS. Coming off of that, I was looking forward to seeing him as Dylan Dog, despite also never having read the comics. I did see Dellamorte Dellamore (a.k.a Cemetary Man) but know that it’s not a direct interpretation of the comics, so that doesn’t quite count. Even though this movie was about vampires, werewolves, and zombies, I could barely keep track of what the fuck was going on. I don’t think it’s all that uncommon for comic book movies to end up being too serialized, filled with short little adventures that are all connected to a major storyline, but I couldn’t keep track of that one thread that kept the plot moving forward. I feel the same way about Hellboy II: The Golden Army, in the sense that I can’t tell you exactly what the fuck happened in that movie, but at least when I left that movie, I enjoyed myself. Unfortunately, if you get an hour and fifteen minutes into a two-hour movie and still have no clue what the fuck is going on or why, you have to make an executive decision to put that movie into that little red envelope that will take it straight back to Netflix Hell.

No, this scene isn’t taken directly from The Spirit, but I was getting sick and goddamned tired of Googling “The Spirit Eva Mendes” and seeing page after page of pictures of this girl’s butt. INFURIATING.

I hope you guys don’t judge me for bailing on these movies without finishing them, especially after seeing how much garbage I am willing to sift through. I think I need to keep a new policy in mind when adding things to the queue, which should start to exclude the need to add EVERY comic book related movie out there. I’ve also seen a couple of those direct-to-video animated comic book movies, and although I might be entertained, ultimately decide against reviewing them. In hopes of you preventing this shit from happening in the future, I’m going to go ahead right now and delete a bunch of shit from my queue that I know I will hate. Come back soon for actual reviews of whole movies!