Sin City

May 11, 2005

In the past couple of years, I’ve reviewed many comic books movies – the great, the mediocre, the bad, the craptacular and the almost completely unwatchable. But in all of these cases, never once have I been interested enough to investigate the source material. Until Sin City, that is.

Yup, I borrowed Sin City from a friend and am in the process of reading them right now. I won’t belabor the obvious and point out how closely the film follows the comic – oh wait, I just did. Oops. Of course, some deviation occurred. For instance, instead of solely sticking with black and white – bright bits of color made a statement that plain old black and white never could. So yeah, the visually stunning comic book makes an even more visually stunning film. Now here’s the part of the review where most reviewers compare Sin City to the similarly green screened Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But see, I would actually have to sit through that tardalicious movie in order to make that comparison. And that just isn’t very likely. I love my readers – but not THAT much. Sorry.

Even though my irritation with Jessica Alba is well documented, she wasn’t the most irritating actress in Sin City. That honor far and away belongs to Brittany Murphy. I shouldn’t even be calling her an actress, should I? Anyone who can be out-acted by Eminem doesn’t really qualify as an actress, does she? Murphy also happened to be afflicted with the worst of the “noir talk” – one of my personal movie pet peeves. “Noir talk” makes me grind my teeth and roll my eyes – and Murphy’s line delivery was just twee enough to make me consider knocking a BOB off the rating of this film. Seriously, the dialogue in the film tended to get on my nerves when delivered by sub-par acting (Jessica Alba, Brittany Murphy, Alexis Bledel), but I didn’t notice it all when delivered along with talented acting (Benicio Del Toro, Rutger Hauer, Carla Gugino – or was I just blinded by her boobs?)

I will never be able to look at Frodo the same again. I am going to have nightmares about him eating Samwise Gamgee’s fingers…AND MAKING HIM WATCH! I should hope that Frodo no longer has any kind of problem with typecasting…but if I’m still calling him Frodo, those typecasting problems may be sticking around a good while longer.

So this is supposed to be Mickey Rourke’s big comeback role? His Pulp Fiction, if you will. There are those that would argue that Mickey Rourke never left, and so is not in need of a comeback. I am not one of those people. If this works out to be his big break back into the public eye, more power to him – way to go Mickey. Maybe if he gets a few more jobs, he’ll stop toting around that stupid damn chihuahua like he’s Paris Hilton.

The one thing this film was missing? Johnny Depp. Rumor has it that he was originally pegged for the character of Jackie Boy, but couldn’t make it due to conflicts, hence Benicio Del Toro. (Possible Fear and Loathing connection?) Which leaves me with one question – Why was Benicio Del Toro wearing Antonio Banderas’ hair? I think he also may have been wearing his nose?

So does Frank Miller have a thing for junk trauma or what? We counted four weener catastrophes – an all time high, even though two are the same person. Way to go Frank!

Ultimately, there’s good news and bad news about the success of Sin City. The bad news is that every successful comic book adaptation nudges the door open a little bit wider for further adaptations from the seemingly endless stream of comics – and Sin City was so successful (and economical) that it pretty much kicked the door open and propped it open, giving filmmakers license to attempt to capitalize of the story of every single comic book hero ever devised. *SIGH* The good news is that at least one of those films, maybe more, will be Sin City sequels, as Rodriguez and Miller have committed to bringing the rest of the Sin City stories to life.