Kind of disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2005)

I went in to "Sin City" with high expectations, and came out a bit disappointed. With all of the hype I had been hearing, I suppose I expected something more.
The movie follows three overlapping stories of men seeking justice in the extremely corrupt city. Along the way they beat up and shoot a lot of people (it is an extremely violent movie, which didn't bother me, but it might bother some people).
I had a few problems with this film: First, I didn't really get how the three stories connected to each other, besides taking place in the same city. There were a few overlapping characters and locations, but they were pretty superficial. Second, the whole movie came off (at least to me) as a two hour exercise in hyper-masculine fantasy. In part this is due to the nearly constant violence in the film, but a lot of it has to do with the role of women. Nearly every female character in the movie is either a hooker or a stripper, and all of them are completely reliant on the male characters for everything - and seem to pay them back with sexual favors. The only women who had any type of independence were the hookers - seemingly sending the message that women only get power through sexuality. And even then, the hookers need one of the main male characters to save them. Third, the dialog seemed awkward in many places. I don't know if it was the way the actors delivered the lines or the way the comic book was adapted to the screen, but in a lot of places it didn't really work. It was supposed to be kind of like old-school film noir dialog, but a lot of it just came off as laughable. Finally (and this is really a minor complaint) there seemed to be an excessive amount of male crotch smashing. Once or twice is understandable, but there must have been at least 10 violent acts (punching, shooting, etc) directed at the male groin throughout the movie. There really wasn't any reason for them (except maybe in one case), and after a while it got kind of weird.
That being said, the movie was visually amazing. Some of the best and most unique cinematography I have ever seen. The music was pretty good too. As for the acting - Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke were good, and Elijah Wood was downright freaky, but Clive Owen seemed stiff, and Rosario Dawson came of as downright ridiculous in parts. And the story (or stories, really) itself was interesting - I just think that something may not have transitioned properly from the book to the screen.
"Sin City" wasn't bad, but I had some problems with it. I guess it just wasn't my type of movie.
Rating: 6 out of 10