Comic book writer Frank Miller had such a bad experience with Hollywood in 1990 when producers butchered his script for RoboCop 2 that he swore he’d never work with movies again. However, Robert Rodriguez did a short film based on one of Miller’s “Sin City” stories that so impressed Miller that he won the chance to direct a full blown feature based on the graphic novels of the same name so long as Miller was given control of the script.
Sin City, the movie, is just as violent and noir-ish as its source material. In fact, most of the movie is lifted directly from the books, matched from panel to shot, with so little variation that Frank Miller is actually credited as a co-director. The movie adapts four stories from the graphic novels: “The Big Fat Kill”, “The Long Hard Goodbye”, “The Customer is Always Right”, and “The Yellow Bastard.”
Central to the film is Marv (Mickey Rourke), a large man who’s virtually indestructible, who goes on a rampage of vengeance to kill the men who murdered the only woman he ever loved. His segment of the film, “The Long Hard Goodbye” is, by far, the most entertaining and enjoyable. Rourke is perfectly cast as the hulking Marv and he clearly seems to be enjoying himself as he casts aside cops like toys and jumps out of buildings without dying. (He certainly does pick up a few scratches, however.)
Bruce Willis, a perfect noir actor, is also very good as Hartigan, a cop who saves a young girl from a brutal rape only to pay a high price for doing the right thing. His story, “The Yellow Bastard” is the second most entertaining.
“The Big Fat Kill”, featuring Clive Owen and Benecio Del Toro, manages to slow the movie to a crawl and ultimately stops me from giving a five-star rating. It’s not that it’s horrible, but just does not fare so well next to the excellent stories of Marv and Hartigan. It’s certainly easy on the eyes, with Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Devon Aoki and Alexis Bledel parading around half-naked, but it falls flat in the pacing department.
Josh Hartnett as a hired killer in “The Customer Is Always Right” bookends the movie and manages to wrap things up nicely.
Robert Rodriguez, who has used digital techniques so well in movies like Once Upon a Time in Mexico and the Spy Kids films, achieves the pinnacle of digital moviemaking with Sin City. Although other films have tried to integrate digital effects seamlessly with live action, I can only think of one other (Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow) that comes close in terms of being able to immerse the viewer in a universe that exists only on film (or in the graphic novels). Unfortunately, not all the stories included in Sin City hit the same kind of highs in the pacing and story-line quality departments.
If there’s a sequel — and I’m hoping there will be — I hope that the storylines are all as interesting as “The Long Hard Goodbye” and “The Yellow Bastard.” If so, Rodriguez and Miller will have the ultimate comic book/graphic novel film adaptation.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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