Sin City

Sin City (2005): I have never been able to really enjoy most movies based on comic books. They tend to be thin on story and short on character but usually have lots of semi-meaningful special effects. Sin City goes beyond most comic book movies by trying to enhance the ‘comic-ness’ of the movie rather than minimize the comic book look. Shot almost entirely using green screen projections, this multiple storied flick from director Robert Rodriguez (Dusk to Dawn, El Mariachi) hits the mark by making you feel you are actually in a comic book. The background is almost always in stark black and white giving the feel of the original graphic novels on which they are based with minimal use of color. You have to watch closely because some of it is subtle such as a character’s eyes turning a color as they are focused on by the camera.

Populated by an excellent cast including Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson to name but a few, the movie is somewhat typical for pulp type comic stories. Heroes can absorb about 20 bullets and still live to tell about it (just barely), the bad guys are really evil and everything in the movie is noirish and grimy. The stories are quite unlikely but are about sacrifice and doing the right thing in the face of insurmountable odds. The heroes are a mixed bunch, one a retiring honest cop, another, a marginally legal fellow who hangs about with the professional ladies and the last is a semi-delusional near homicidal maniac trying to solve the murder of the 1st lady to be nice to him. With lots of action and lengthy narration, this translates from the graphic novel to a movie better than anything I’ve seen. Be prepared to enter a world designed to interest the male adolescent before video games took over their minds. The deluxe DVD comes with a copy of the comic novel. The movie is rated R for: nakidity, rampant torture, excessive nad removals, one very hot parole officer, massive bullet wounds, multiple breastulations, multiple murders, massive mayhem, multiple madams, multiple molls, a double electrocution and even a garnish of Irish terrorists!