Sin City Reviewed

Recently returned from the City Which Never Sleeps, my colleague Kenny shares his thoughts on the new Sin City movie which has just opened State-side (topping the US box office on it's opening day on Friday, taking some $12 million - over twice the take of the second placed film, Beauty Shop):

I was lucky enough to be in New York as Sin City opened on Friday and got a chance to catch the film. It's hard to describe - you won't have seen anything quite like it. Rodriguez has said he wanted to put all the Miller style up on the screen and he has done that. This isn't a movie based on a comic, it's more a comic that moves. The mainly black and white photography is stunning, knock you backwards stunning, at first. Every little highlight of colour mesmerises the eye - red, blues and, of course, That Yellow Bastard.

The violence of the comics is all up on the screen and more - a sort of über-violence which verges on parody, at times it will make you laugh. The actors do a great job of being the comic characters. Rourke is huge, powerful, athletic and almost mindless; he is Marv. An actor looking for a part to redeem a career gone of the tracks - this is his performance.

Bruce Willis is Hartigan - as if he walked out of a Donna Karan advert, like those he used to do a few years ago. Stylish, beautiful and calm - amidst the madness. Clive Owen is Dwight - he's great; he's brooding, he's violent, he's part of Sin City. If you've seen Closer you know these are streets that Owen looks like he was born to walk down; he fits the part like a glove.

If you're a comic fan or if you are a fan of comic art - this is the first time you will have seen the art directly up on the screen; in Lord of the Rings we saw Alan Lee and John Howe's artwork translated to the screen - here we have the actual art pages themselves. You will love it, revel in it. Be amazed that it carried more than 2 full pages in USA Today on day of release. You will feel you're beloved medium has come of age.

But then, you might just ask if it was a great film. I didn't think so. It is - no doubt - one of the greatest looking films you will ever see, but the slavish translation of the comics makes it a sort of sub Noir which could have done with a better dialogue writer (although to be fair the comics are heavier on visual style than dialogue). The fact that it's based around three separate storylines only tied together visually by clues to the chronology of the proceedings makes it lack a real narrative drive.

This is a real world and the characters obviously co-exist in it - appearing briefly in each others scenes. But unless you look hard it feels a little like 3 short stories jammed together. In a Noir way the characters are cyphers - they have no depth or even desire to have depth. In some ways that removes the melancholy from them which should exist and turns them into straightforward heroes and villains - though in truth there are few heroes here, just lots of lost souls.

It makes it hard to feel for the characters, even when Willis finally finds a sort of redemption - although in truth as the only unsullied character in the movie you wonder why he needs it - you feel no sympathy for his plight. Noir is dark, but sometimes without the light of salvation the depth of the darkness isn't always apparent - we have no frame of reference. A little less faithfulness to the original material might have let the movie breathe a little more (and how unusual a criticism is that? Normally we're crying out for more faithfulness to the source comics. But different mediums do have different requirements).

Don't let me put you off - it is a MUST see. And you might enjoy it completely - I know it thrilled me at times. There are sequences like Marv breaking outof the building early on which make you gasp. There are those like Willis in the snow which overwhelm you with their visual beauty. The performances are strong throughout; it is a step forward for US mainstream film-making, and the direction cinematically is a wonder. My suspicion is that the mainstream, non-comics, audience won't really wear it - but I hope I'm wrong. We could all hope for comic movies as excellent as this. But next time maybe some of what is on the page can be left behind or altered so the loveliness of the art gets a screenplay which supplements it and makes it a bigger, better work. Seven out of ten.