The atmosphere is dark, the violence raw and the women as deadly as well-curved!

Rating: 7/10 (23 July 2005)

Sin City is one of the best efforts I have seen until now to transfer to the big screen a comic book. It totally respects the comic artist's (Frank Miller that is) perspective and makes a decent (and in a great part very successful) effort to transfer it to screen. A great deal of this achievement should be credited (in my opinion) to Frank Miller himself, since not only he co-directed the film with Rodriguez, but also in the first place his Sin City graphic novels are sketched in such a way as to oftentimes give the impression that you have in front of you a storyboard for a film. He has a very cinematographic way of sketching.
The aesthetics of the movie is fascinating and the way Rodriguez shot it (having the actors play most of the times in front of blue screens and then drawing the background scenery) in order to give it a more comic-like look has paid off and contributed dearly to the accurate transfer to the screen the biggest part of the comic's dark, claustrophobic and at times surreal atmosphere. I believe that Rodriguez, with Sin City, has set a new standard for the films that are comic book transfers (as was his intention in the first place).
A special credit should be given to Mickey Rourke's acting which is excellent. Rourke completely and inspiringly brings to life one of the most touching characters of Sin City (Marv) exactly as presented in the comic. One of his best performances of late.
The movie's violence may disturb some, but nobody said that Sin City is a movie for housewives. A rather hilarious remark about the film I heard was while waiting in the line outside the cinema when I went to see it. It came from a middle-aged woman, coming out of the cinema some minutes before the end (god I hate those people) and "warning" us: "Go grab a straw while you are at it, to suck all the blood". It is true that the movie is not kind with its audience, but that is the least to be expected when Rodriguez and Miller co-direct and Tarantino special-guest-directs.
In the bottom line I thoroughly enjoyed Sin City. Not so much as reading the graphic novels though, but I believe that many will find it even more exciting. Rodriguez's and Miller's inspired direction provides a compelling, dark atmosphere. The great cast gives very good performances (with best of all in my opinion Rourke's) and on top of it all is the scenario with as original stories as any, in our times, can be.
A flick definitely worth seeing at least once.