Visually striking trash

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2007)

The look of this critically acclaimed film is striking: A neo-noir comic book that springs to life on the screen and is so richly textured that it takes your breath away. Unfortunately, 30 minutes later the novelty of the cinematography wears off and there is nothing to replace it. Based on a Frank Miller graphic novel that I have not read (and would not read having endured this travesty), the film is little more than a series of ultra-violent vignettes set in the dark, dank crime-riddled streets of the big city. There is nary a violent or sexual act that the film does not lovingly glorify to the point of it becoming a fetish. As depicted, every man is violent and corrupt and every woman is a whore. Despite an unending spate of recognizable faces, there is literally no likable character with which to engage viewer sympathy. None of the vignettes are surprising or clever trudging tediously from point A to B without any evidence of wit or class. There is virtually no suspense involved at any point in the film making this one of the most desensitizing and soporific films to come along in quite some time. By the time an army of barely-clad weapons-laden prostitutes take the screen amid the rivers of dark-hued blood spilled so liberally throughout the film, one recognizes that the film has devolved into little more than a sexually stunted, ADD-riddled cyber-geek's Mountain Dew-induced fever dream.