Sigh.

I have a friend who was into The Spirit all the way back in college, the 1980s, when absolutely nobody out of a certain segment of the comic book audience even knew who Eisner was. Too bad Frank Miller had to be the one doing it.

i happen to be greatly indebted to Miller for just the Dark Knight and Elektra: Assassin, and, in my way, was tipping to both sides of what anyone happened to think of Frank.
i found Sin City entertaining and i found the Spirit simple and graphic, like noir detective stories, some comics and his writing style.
i liked how i had no hype about it and got pretty much what i expected, a movie that needed very little in the way of explanation with a lot of well intentioned allusions to heroes, myths and archetypes that looked good on the big screen and could stand incredibly high doses of whatever your drug of choice, or at hand, and still remain intact.

i think whole generations will grow up with The Spirit the way they are growing up with Sin City and the Lord of the Rings, babysitting them all day in reruns, and i don't mind as much as i could.
If they learn nothing else, it's that you never hurt a cat.
People who would hurt cats are the bad guys.

There are worse ways to spend other people's money, and with my expectations for movies, i wasn't disappointed. That's so rare these days.