is anyone else not in love with the visuals?

Rating: 2/10 (21 January 2007)

to be fair, let me preface by saying that i have never read the original Frank Miller graphic novel, and so am 'uneducated' in some respects. i am also an unremitting lover of the look of actual grain and celluloid film, even if digital video and CG graphics are getting better and better. Many other reviewers unenamored of the film have talked about how the cinematic medium, even when trying to exactly replicate the comic, has a totally different psychological/emotional effect than a still 'snapshot' story that allows the reader to create their own tones, pace, and nuances; likewise, i would like to argue that the visual grit of the compressed 2-D, graphic novel medium is also lost when translated to a semi-3-D, digitally filmed medium. the framing, the lighting, the color effects were all very pretty, but it lacked the TEXTURE, the true grit the brain fills in when looking at the varying lines in a comic, or when looking at earlier noir movies filmed with actual props and locations rather than post-green screen CG. What it really reminded me of was that Gatorade commercial filmed in stark black and white punctuated by the athlete's lime green sweat. i'm not saying it looked bad, it's still 100 times more visually engaging than any of the muddled, busy, artless stuff excreted by George Lucas in his latter-day techno-infatuation, but my eye became desperate for real texture, and got bored pretty quickly.
a film ain't looks alone, and i found the rest to be over-slick and flat as well. The 'hard-boiled' delivery of lines was conceptually clever for the first minute, and then got really grating and monotonous. i'm sure that if i were to read Frank Miller's graphic novel, the character nuance and the re-invention of the old noir-comic archetype heroes, villains, and dames would be apparent. But the characters in the film never develop past the straight-jacket of the archetype, and hyper-cliché is still cliché. The usual joy of modern graphic novels or a Tarantino or Rodriguez flick is being able to watch recognized genre archetypes being reinvented and derailed, being able to watch the larger than life heist-member, hit man, or she-assassin mull over real world inanities of french fast food, the meaning of Madonna lyrics, or unclogging the toilet in the bar bathroom. the fast pace of the story and hyper-action were mildly entertaining, but i found myself checking my watch.
wow, this turned out to be a long-winded reiteration of what a lot of other people have said already, when i really just wanted to say that it looked like that gatorade commercial. damn, now i'm thirsty.