Movies
Sin City
Comic-book burlesque of the hard-boiled film noir, tougher than tough, cooler than cool, bloodier than bloody, sillier than silly. Robert Rodriguez adapted it -- or more accurately, copied it -- from Frank Miller's series of graphic novels; and he insisted, to the point of resigning from the Director's Guild, on sharing the directing credit with Miller (besides bringing in his buddy, Quentin Tarantino, as a "guest director" of unspecified services). Different first-person narrators guide us through the different, dovetailed storylines, but always with the same hammerhead tone of voice: "I'm gonna find that son of a bitch that killed you, and I'm gonna give him the hard goodbye." The baroque black-and-white photography, with digital dabs of color for a red dress, green eyes, blue eyes, golden hair, blood, etc., may at first be "visually arresting" (thank you, Newsweek), but over the long haul it's visually imprisoning. Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Benecio Del Toro, Jessica Alba, Brittany Murphy, Carla Gugino, Jaime King, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, Michael Madsen, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe. 2005.
— Duncan Shepherd
Reader Rating:
- MPAA Rating: R
Holy S***! This motherf***er is beyond good. As in Miller's comic series, "That Yellow Bastard" and "The Hard Goodbye" are the two standouts. I've been a fan of Miller's since "The Dark Knight Returns" and Hard Boiled," and I honestly never thought any filmmaker would be able to bring his "Sin City" properly to the big screen. Fortunately, Rodriguez proved me wrong. He was able to transfer the look as well as the perpetual foreboding of the comic to his movie. Everybody in "Sin City" did an outstanding acting job, especially Mickey Roarke and Bruce Willis and, of course, the beautiful Jessica Alba. Whether you've read the comics or not, you'll still enjoy this movie, but you should, at some point in your life, treat yourself to Miller's work.
By quillpena 12:48 p.m., Apr 15, 2010 > Report it
Frank Miller stories make great comic books - I cite his run on Daredevil and his Dark Night Returns mini-series by way of proof.
Frank Miller stories make AWFUL movies - Robocop 2, 300, the Spirit, and now this astonishingly failed attempt to adapt his own hardboiled retrocomic to the screen.
Somebody please buy Miller a pile of Bristol boards and some new brushes, and take away his MotionBox edit software....
By jayallen 12:30 p.m., Apr 25, 2010 > Report it