Best Comic Book movie since "Batman"

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2005)

Five minutes into SIN CITY, I was pretty sure that I had stumbled into a baaaaaaad movie. I defy anyone to sit through the opening scene-- a man and woman standing on a balcony spouting typical private-eye time dialog with typical private-eye first-person narration-- and not be reminded of a recent commercial for "Flonase". As the opening scenes progress, the elaborate visual style comic-noir only seemed to make the narrative seem more slap-dash and hyperbolic, a caricature. The artifice took me farther away, not closer to the story. I couldn't stop being aware that the actors were standing in front of wind machines, and that drove me crazy. I wondered if I would be walking out.
Fortunately, I stayed, and I was gradually seduced into accepting this film on its own special terms-- and I loved it. "Sin City" may be a classic of "pure cinema", meaning that it builds on everything that the cinema has always been about, from George Melies to Eisenstein to John Woo. It's not about characters-- it's about images, motion and magic. It's also just about the most violent thing since Homer's Iliad-- but the violence is brilliantly realized-- frightening and witty by turns. Like a Jackie Chan action film, or a keystone cops short, it doesn't give you much to think about when you leave the theater. But I'm pretty sure that I'll be seeing it again.