Sin City Review

So as to not spoil the movie for you yahoos who haven't seen it yet, I'm going to try and talk about aspects of the film as opposed to the film itself.

Most of the time, I think MPAA ratings are shit. Hell, most of the time I think the MPAA itself is shit. In fact, go ahead and cross out that most and put all. I think that a lot of R ratings are ridiculous: kids see and hear worse things on TV, at school and at church, to say nothing of what goes on in their own heads. This is especially true in regards to sexual content and the minds of boys (I can't speak for girls) from the ages of 10-17 (not that the thoughts stop then, it's just that you can go see the R movies then). But in the case of Sin City, I am definately of the opinion that children should be kept the hell away from this film. (When I say children, I am generalizing to mean people whose minds are not mature enough to handle the content matter. It is perfectly within the realm of possibility that you could find an 11 year old who would be better suited to watch this movie than many 17 year olds. In that case I would be in favor of letting that child see the movie. But we're talking about generalities here, people! Get off my back.) It's not that the movie is bad. As I will describe below, Sin City is fucking fantastic. And it's not that it has lots of sex and whatnot that most MPAA bitches think children should never, be exposed to, less they suddenly start fucking in the aisles. In fact, I don't think anyone swears in the entire movie. But Sin City is the sort of movie that should get an R rating, because it contains graphic, twisted violence. Usually, this is the sort of thing that the MPAA thinks is fine to show kids. But when you need to use the word "castrations" to describe a film, it's a good bet that kids might have nightmares.

This is a hardcore film. People get capped, cut, castrated and cannibalized. And since the "good" guys are almost all on missions where they require information they don't have, they have the tendency to torture people until they give it up. My parents didn't like Kill Bill because they thought it was too violent; I told them not to bother going to this movie, because they'd probably walk out after the first 10 minutes. But if you can handle the subject matter, this is one of the best films you can see. It may take a little while to get acclimated to the dialogue and the voice overs, because it sounds kind of corny at first. But then you realize that this is a world where you can't speak like you can in our world. Most of us will never be violently threatened or hunted by people who want to do us harm. But in the beautifully stark world that Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller bring to the screen, everyone is danger all the time. There are no innocent bystanders. They can't speak with the watered down niceties that we do. The best description I've read is from Harry's review at AICN: "The characters spout - no erupt with the sort of high living and dying dialogue that gods speak before killing and fucking." Like I said, it takes a little getting used to, but once the movie gets going and you realize the danger these people are in, you understand the urgency and power of their dialogue.

Sin City, like the Republican party, utilizes some of the basest of human emotions. But unlike the Republicans, who have a propensity for fear and hate, Sin City appeals to your desire for vengence, sex and bloody justice. The heroes can't just defend the innocent and defeat the guilty, because everyone's guilty and nobody's innocent. All the women are strippers or hookers and all the men are thugs, murderers or worse. But within that context, Rodriguez and Miller show us people that have a sense of honor and ethics, albeit an ethics that has no problem killing people and making them suffer before they go. Sin City reflects the worst and best of what we have to offer, distilled to its essense and crammed into a two hour flick that manages to effortlessly alternate between moments of quite introspection and action that will make your jaw hit the floor.

There are a ton of actors and characters of note in this film, but it's pretty easy to generalize because the performances are outstanding. Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen carry the film as the three main characters Marv, Hartigan and Dwight. Rourke is particularily brilliant in what might be the ultimate tough guy role. Of all the other characters, only Brittany Murphy's performance didn't sit right with me, but that may be because it came at the beginning of a new story sequence and I wan't used to it yet. Keep your eye out for a couple of hired thugs that show up in Bruce Willis' two story sections. Their dialogue (I should say monologue, since it's really just one character's diatribe) is fantastic.

Like Sky Captain, Sin City was shot digitally using green screens for just about everything. But while Sky Captain was going for the soft, fuzzy look of an early pulp serial, Sin City uses the same technology to make everything hyper-realistic and gritty. It's the ultimate noir look, allowing Rodriguez to speak to the audience using selective color in the midst of a black and white film. The result is a look reminiscent of the digital color grading of The Lord of the Rings, only with a BALCO account and no congressional oversight. Sin City is one of the most visually arresting films you'll ever see, and will probably become the new gold standard for digitally created films.

I've never read Miller's graphic novels, although I've heard nothing but good things about them. From everything I've read, the movie is picked up from the comics almost frame by frame. Rodriguez and Miller do a fabulous job. Go see this movie.