Violence, nudity, revenge and more violence.
Sin City is a comic adaptation that is not for kids.
This movie is hard as nails and as unforgiving as a brick wall, or as Harlan Elison puts it, “tougher and meaner than a Drano milkshake”. There are three stories here, running one after the other with a bit of overlap for continuity, all based on the comic of the same name, written and illustrated by Frank Miller. The stories start with 1992’s first visit to the city with The Hard Goodbye, followed by The Big Fat Kill and finished with That Yellow Bastard.
Black and White with splashes of selected colour, just like the comic, the similarities between the two mediums do not end there. Rodregaz has given Miller a co-direction credit because he has recreated the comic imagery almost exactly.
Sin City the comic was ground breaking, not so much because of it’s content, but because of it’s style. Single handedly it created the Comic Noir genre. Frank Miller had risen through the Marvel comics ranks, working on titles like Daredevil (where he created the Electra character), but he really broke through with his Batman tale “The Dark Knight Returns” in 1987. This was a heavy influence on both Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan’s film adaptations of the Dark Knight. Keep an eye out for Miller’s cameo in the Marv story as Priest (and readers of Millers other work should keen an eye out for the PAX logos).
Being such an accurate transfer of imagery can cause some problems. Panels that provided iconic in the comic, like Marv dragging someone beside the car, do look a little odd on the big screen. On the whole the violence, though graphic and frequent, does look cartoonish or like a videogame.
The film has little in the way of heroes, but the situations that the mysterious protagonists find themselves in, along with their seeming indestructibility, make them likable. The evil of the bad guys does go some way to justifying their gruesome demises’.
This film goes a way to stretching director Robert Rodgrez’s ability, without straying far from the action movie genre. I look forward to any sequels. High Distinction.