Sin City is well on its way to taking the #1 spot on the box office charts away from the comedic genius of Ashton Kutcher (don't worry, he'll be back soon) and it's, uh, pretty good... I guess.
Its director, Robert Rodriguez, is a contemporary and comrade of Quentin Tarantino. Their careers have often intersected (Tarantino even directs one brief scene in Sin City) but Rodriguez has achieved only a fraction of Tarantino's acclaim.
It's clear that Rodriguez has been happy carving out a solid career of sturdy genre films and experimenting with new technology, but it seemed like he might have hit on something bigger with Sin City. Here, finally, might be his own Pulp Fiction.
Not so fast.
The first thing to mention with Sin City is its singular great achievement: it looks unlike any other movie. The film, like the Frank Miller graphic novels it's based on, is a tribute to film noir. The images are primarily black and white with vivid splashes of color to accentuate certain elements: a woman's red lips, a literal yellow bastard, etc. There's much to appreciate in the visuals of Sin City (and thankfully Rodriguez's dedication to bringing Miller's vision directly to the screen has also caused him to calm down the hyper camera and editing work that made Once Upon a Time in Mexico so messy).
Rodriguez has also assembled a fantastic cast. There are many roles to be filled in bringing three of Miller's stories to the screen and the actors who signed on are an impressive bunch.
This is primarily a man's world and Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen acquit themselves well in the lead roles. Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer and Powers Boothe offer strong support.
The women are primarily objects of lust but Brittany Murphy, Jaime King, Devon Aoki, Carla Gugino and especially Rosario Dawson all make positive impressions anyway. (An incompetent Jessica Alba, dull Josh Hartnett, wooden Michael Madsen and miscast Alexis Bledel round out the ensemble.)
But what went wrong?
For all of its talent and visual achievements there's very little going on underneath the surface of Sin City. Much of the film plays less like classic noir and more like a Saturday Night Live film noir parody.
Rodriguez has made a clear effort to bring the world of Sin City to life, but the people come in a distant second. It's a beautiful body, with no pulse.
The film's lack of vibrant characters becomes increasingly apparent and troublesome in the second full story The Big Fat Kill. Highlighting the ensemble's best actors (Owen, Del Toro, Dawson, Murphy), the story starts off strong and finishes with a whimper. Its cold hearted romanticism lands with a thud because at no point do these characters actually mean anything. Similar problems plague the endings of the other two stories.
As Sin City goes on it begins to feel monotonous on several levels. Its themes emerge as repetitive and simplistic (rough man protect pretty girl), the fixation on violence starts to feel juvenile and its reliance on the old noir standby of voiceover wears thin (the incessant narration on the Marv/Hard Goodbye story almost single handedly derails that entire segment).
All in all it's a near-miss, still worth at least a look for its unique style and interesting ensemble.
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