Sin City Review
Just like I always do. Here is the short version for those
of you who don’t want to read the whole review. The movie was amazing. It was
also extremely graphic. So if you were thinking about taking your girlfriend or
kids, I would say no to that unless they like seeing lots of blood and violence
to go along with the language and nudity that are also in the movie.
So, on to the review. Like I said before, it was an amazing
movie. It is based on the comics by Frank Miller. This is the reason for the
title of Frank Miller’s SinCity. The director,
Robert Rodriguez, made this decision because he wanted to make sure everyone
knew that this was based on Frank Miller’s work. Before the movie even started,
he quit the Director’s Guild so that he could have Frank Miller as his
co-director. Now, that may sound dumb or confusing, but the reason for it is
that Frank Miller is not a director. If you are part of the Director’s Guild,
one of the stipulations is that you are not able to co-direct with those
outside of the Guild. This may not sound like a big deal, but this means that
he can no longer direct a lot of the big budget projects from studios like Paramount and Universal.
This means a lot of money that he won’t get from these movies. But he believed
in this project to that capacity. Now, on to the show.
The movie follows 3 stories one at a time. You get a little
taste of them all at the beginning, but then delve deeper into them throughout
the course of the movie. The first segment follows Marv, also known as Mickey
Rourke. I will go ahead and let you know that he was the high point of the movie. He absolutely stole
the show from any other person acting in this film. The other actors that are
in this story are Carla Gugino, Elijah Wood, and Jamie King. Without going into
too much detail, it centers around the death of a prostitute who was killed in
her sleep and Marv is out to find the culprit. Elijah Wood played one of the
freakiest characters I have ever seen as Kevin. Without ever saying a word, he
freaked me out more than The Ring ever could have hoped for. .
The second story revolves around Clive Owen. Again, I am
trying to keep this spoiler free, but after leaving his girlfriend’s house,
Brittany Murphy, he goes to Old Town where hookers run
things. It is a twist on the life they apparently had before, where mobs and
pimps ran it. This keeps the girls’ interests in the highest regard, instead of
those who only work the business side of things. Here we meet Rosario Dawson,
Devon Aoki, and Alexis Bledel all working their angles on the streets of Old Town.
Benicio Del Toro is trying to get a little action, but things don’t go the way
he had planned. Here Clive Owen works with the girls to try and keep things
clean enough so that they don’t have to go back to the life that they
previously endured underneath the sneaky bosses of the past. Even though this
story wasn’t the best part of the movie, it did have its high points. Benicio’s
pez dispenser routine was some really good voice work and was probably the
funniest part of the movie. I know, I know, I am a little weird for liking
that, but this is the type of movie where you will find things that you will
feel badly for laughing at. It has the same type of humor that films like Pulp
Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Fight Club. I believe this is why Tarantino was
brought in to work a little bit on it. It definitely had his touch to things,
but not so much that he was a major factor.
The final story centers with Bruce Willis who is a cop that
is past his prime and planning on retiring very soon, but he knows that he
can’t let a criminal go if he can help at all. He finds out that Nick Stahl,
also known as Yellow Bastard, has an affinity for young girls and even though
his family is very high in the politics of the time, does not deserve to get
off easy. This is possibly the most horrifying part of the movie when Bruce
actually rips off the bits of the offender. The young girl whom he saves is the
child version of Jessica Alba. Even though these are the actors who are most well-known,
this is the story that was really left out in the cold, as far as the care of
development that the others took. They were acted very well, and with the types
of roles that they were, were done beautifully, but you have to keep in mind
that these are comic book stories turned into movies. So, of course there are
dialogue points that are very campy.
Now that we have covered the stories, let’s talk a little
about the movie cinematically. It was a beautifully shot piece. I know that is
not normally something you would hear from me, but I can think of no other
words to describe how amazing it looked. The use of color seemed like it was
simply a gimmick at the beginning, but as the movie went on, you could see what
Rodriguez was trying to do. If something needed to be focused on, then it was
by the use of color. Black and white films have never looked so vivid. It was
all shot in front of a green screen so that the details could be done perfectly
by tweaking them over time and making the movie that was envisioned.
Like I said before, this was a comic book that was turned into a movie. Without
selling out to go to a broader audience, Rodriguez kept true to the books and
even kept dialogue from the comics verbatim. This coupled with the comic book
panel shots made it really feel like you were watching a comic book. It is not
like the X-Men / Spider-man blockbusters where it has to be dramatized so that
a large audience can make up for the big budget film that was just produced.
But instead, it goes out on a limb and makes a movie that is truly
revolutionary.
In conclusion, this movie captured my attention the entire
time. Keep in mind that kids should not see this, and most ladies probably
won’t enjoy it, but it is a great film. There is a lot of violence and gore.
There are also a couple of shots of nudity and a bit of language. If you don’t
have a weak stomach and enjoy movies with violence or comic book movies, I
would say to go see this movie. It is thrilling the entire time. That doesn’t
mean it is action the entire time, but you know it is coming. So for Sin City
I will give it a 4 out of 5 stars simply because of the nudity. But maybe after
a few more watches it will work its way up. We’ll see.