Splendid adaption - but disturbing brutality

Rating: 8/10 (19 August 2005)

You can't blame a movie for being close to the original, can you? Having read most of the Sin City comic books just recently, I sometimes thought that some of the most disturbing portrayals of extreme violence and bloodshed should have been left out in the movie. It is something different if you have a black and white panel in a comic book or if you have moving pictures which make the experience much more alive.
Still, apart from the blood and gore criticism, the film is a very exact rendition of what the comics are about. Harldy ever has any form of book been transferred to the big screen in such an unbiased form - certainly due to Frank Miller being the co-director of the movie.
The movie is fast-paced, the characters are strong and the visual adaption of the comic is breath taking. If you close your eyes during some of the most violent scenes, you have a perfect example of a comic book movie here.
Still, I thought that some of the elements left out in the Hardigan storyline were diminishing the personal drama the character is going through. Maybe it would have been better to show these elements - scenes in which Hardigan talks to his wife or is confronted with Senator Roark in court - and to leave out one or two severed limbs instead?