Straight from the comics

Rating: 2/10 (4 April 2005)

If you discount the sleepwalking actors, the clunky writing, monotonous soundtrack and uninspired camera work, Sin City wasn't all that bad.
Three-in-one and not a one of them was in any way anything more than an extended commercial advertising Frank Miller's misogynistic fantasies and Rodriguez's lack of inspiration.
I know they were aiming to pay homage to the hardboiled detective noir thrillers of yesteryear, but Orson Welles pulled it off better (and in a shorter time span) than Rodriguez and Co. did. What we have here is all form, no substance.
Fans of Miller's comic will likely lose their minds with glee over the fact that every frame, every line, every everything was taken straight from his comic books - heck, I even found myself going "Hey! That's straight from the original 'Sin City' story in Dark Horse Presents!" But you know what? Slavish attention to detail doesn't pay off when you ignore the big picture. It doesn't matter if Clive Owen's hair looks EXACTLY like Dwight's as Miller drew him if his lines are painful to listen to. Yes, they were taken word-for-word from the comic book, but there is a reason (or three in this movie given the different story lines) why Miller writes for comic books. A monthly serial aimed at a preteen audience in a format where words are read and not heard ahas its limitations... limitations that become all too apparent when the lines that sound tough-as-nails in black-and-white sound so laughably childish when actually read aloud.
It's a beautiful movie to look at, the actors looked exactly like their counterparts in the comics, the sets (such as they were) were ingeniously and lovingly crafted - so why do I still feel like I wasted my time? Because movies have evolved beyond ten-second snippets of a man sneezing. Movies are not only the wardrobe and sets and pretty faces. They are, in a perfect world, an all-encompassing experience that give us something to look at, something to listen to, and something to think about.
I looked. I listened. But I'll be darned if it gave me anything to think about other than ten different things I'd rather be doing than watching this film.
2 out of 10.