Sin City Review
Like its source material the movie has one of the most striking visual styles put to screen. This is a world of black and white with only a few insertions of color for contrast and highlight. Blood is either red or pure white, either way it is striking. Apart from the actors this entire world is a visual effect, the entire movie was shot on a green screen set yet there is always a feel that the actors are able to give to their location even though there is no environment.
Sin City has no singular plot but many interwoven plots that loosely connect to each-other. A fascinating innovation on continuity is that the stories are not linear, one story can happen and a character might die and then the next starts and that same character is still alive, because it takes place in the past. The movie becomes a sequel and prequel to itself.
Out of all the stories the Marv one is my favorite. Mick Rorke is unrecognizable as a big hulking brute that loves the violence and jungle method of the city but still finds something to care and fight for in a prostitute named Goldie.
The movie credits Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller as directors. This is because Rodriguez followed the comic book paneling exactly as drawn by Miller. I don't really accept that, yes apparently Miller was there every day of the shooting but unless he helped set up the shots and gave direction to the actors then you are not part of the directing process. If he did then that's fine, but as far as I know he was just the creator of the comic which the movie is based on.
Rodriguez invited his long time friend, Quentin Tarantino, to direct a short section where a character is in a car with a dead body that is speaking to him and lights flash to show his emotional state. This was so that Rodriguez could demonstrate the advantages of shooting digitally and this is one of the best scenes in the entire movie.
Frank Miller is sexist and a racist. He is incapable of writing women that are not prostitutes (even the one who aren't). Every woman sells herself on her sexuality and is only valued on her sex-appeal and nothing else. They all need a man to save them and when they come up against a man they are defeated. Even if Miller was these things in his personal life and not in his work perhaps I could over look the artist for the art, but all of Miller's faults rear their ugly head in the work.
Beyond everything in the movie, beyond the spectacular visuals, the well pulled-off pulpy performances, the translation of the page to the screen and the rather enjoyable stories is the sexism. The sexism is something that I simply cant get over. There are older movies that have their shame to them like Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Searchers and more that a handful of Hitchcock movies, but they were product of a more naive and less sensitive time. This comic came out during the nineties and the movie was released in 2004, we are suppose to know better and be more accepting, but here if your a strong white male then its all good for you, if not then you are either victim or villain.
Sin City is indeed a place of black and white. A place where on one side you can clearly see talent and good work but another where there is a vile, insecure, misogynist at the helm which poisons the whole experience for me. Still, the movie has some of the best visuals ever and when the actors deliver they deliver.Movies are a visual art and this movie succeeds there hand down. So its gets three stars, that sounds right.
Rating: 3 stars out of 4
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