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Sin City is one tough movie about killers,
prostitutes, priests, hit men, and cops. The characters are primal and emotionally raw.
The settings are stark and shocking. The nudity makes you wonder why it only has an R
rating. Add to that the violence, implied sex acts, overall grossness, and crude
language, and you really wonder who took the pay-off to rate this movie at anything below
NC-17. If you go see this movie, understand all of the above before you pay the price of
admission.
Comic book fans have been waiting years to see this movie.
Frank Miller wrote and drew the graphic novels that take place in Sin City, and he’s
given the credit of being a co-director in the movie version. He (along with co-director
Robert Rodriguez) lifted this movie panel-by-panel from the graphic novels. In other
comics-turned-movies, fans of the comics have complained that the movie left out key
parts of the story. That can’t be said of this movie, as even the dialog was taken
word-for-word from the comic.
The movie is visually dazzling—with
effects that have non-comic-lovers going to see it. Shot against a green-screen
background, the sets and lighting effects have been added in post-production with
computer animation and graphics. It’s a technological feat that gives this movie a
film noir look like nothing shot since the introduction of Technicolor©. There
are some splashes of color painted in to add impact or emphasis, but that’s it. The gore
in this movie is taken to a new level by shooting it this way. Each scene is recreated
exactly from the graphic novels, and the movement of the actors is simply to get them to
the next panel from the comic.
There’s where the problem with this movie
lies.
The comic book movies that have worked—like Spider-Man, the
first Batman, and X-Men—are the
ones that have taken the characters and tweaked them to fit a movie format—leaving in the
parts that comic fans are so rabid about. But the heroes and villains in Sin City
are the same black-and-white, two-dimensional characters that they were when Miller
created them. They don’t have that something extra that makes them believable. The dialog
that sounds so cool in the reader’s head comes out as corny and stale when delivered by
living, breathing people. It comes off like a high school play—which is surprising,
since it’s one of the biggest name ensembles in quite some time.
The plot
is akin to Pulp
Fiction, in that it’s really three different storylines and a vignette that are
sort of wrapped together. Bruce Willis plays the hardheaded cop, Hartigan, out to wrap
up one last case before he retires at the end of the day. Mickey Rourke, under all that
latex, is Marv, an ugly beast who wakes up with a dead prostitute (Goldie/Wendy played by
Jaime King) in his bed and sets out to avenge her. Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is the
cowgirl-themed stripper who’s still in love with Hartigan, eight years after he saved
her. Clive Owen plays Dwight, a murderer with a good heart who’s had his face rebuilt so
he can stay out of jail—but he ends up killing a crooked cop (Benicio Del Toro as Jackie
Boy) over waitress/girlfriend, Shellie (campily portrayed by Brittany Murphy). The cast
list goes on to include Alexis Bledell, Josh Hartnett, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Rutger
Hauer, Elijah Wood, Michael Clarke Duncan, and about a dozen others.
I
liked the graphic novels when they first came out, and I liked this movie. Yet I can’t
bring myself to recommend it for everyone else. It’s something that you’re either going
to hate or love—all based on your ability to handle the rough parts and enjoy how good
the gore looks in black and white.
Ed. Note: For more on Sin
City, check out Josh Gyniewicz’s Pop Cultist column, Comic Books on the Big
Screen
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