Sin City, magnificent...

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2005)

Having never read any of Frank Miller's Sin City comics before, I can't say I truly appreciated the adaptation that Frank Miller's Sin City movie is. Instead I'm forced to appreciate it on all the other great efforts put into this movie. Sin City is a new kind of magic, not the normal movie magic we're so used to. This is a magic that could only come from a graphic novel... or "comic book" if you're looking for the juvenile term. This is a whole new level of live action comic. Rodriguez and Miller didn't film this movie they painted it. Alexis Bledel's beautiful blue eyes, the white blood leaking out of Hartigan, The yellow slime oozing out of the Yellow Bastard. This is a masterpiece of cinematography. The structure and storytelling of it is akin to Pulp Fiction, only Pulp Fiction is much more tame by comparison. A short opening followed by three different yet slightly intertwined stories; Heartigan, Marv, and Dwight and followed by an ending that brings the film about in full circle in a way that I can only compare to Honey Bunny and Pumpkin's destiny with Jules and Vincent in the diner in Pulp. But this is no Pulp Fiction. Better or worse? No, just different. While Pulp Fiction stood out with it's amazing dialog, Sin City's spark comes from what is not said. Unlike any other comic adaptation I've seen, this film takes you inside the characters minds, it doesn't even deserve to be called voice over (or what some would say is a cheap and lazy way to move along narrative in a screenplay). The use of thought in comics is never questioned, and I'm glad Rodriguez and Miller didn't exclude it from the film for what the industry thinks of it. Instead they use it in the only way it should be used, the way Kaufman used it in Adaptation, to take us inside the minds of each character and help us understand them. We may not agree with them, we may not identify with them, but we understand them more than any dialog could help us to. Sin City is a rare thing. See it.