Visually stunning... but pretty much just pornography

Rating: 6/10 (13 September 2009)

It's hard to think of a film that has such visual inventiveness and strange visual beauty... or one that is so utterly empty. All the techniques of the fetish fantasy film maker (arch-exponent one Q Tarantino) are there: the ultra-violence, the juxtaposition of the extreme with the prosaic (example: a cannibalistic sadist with super martial arts powers called... Kevin... Oh! how I laughed!), a Columbinesque obsession with fire-arms; along with a sackful of other fantasies beloved by teenage boys: big-breasted women, samurai swords, suicide, leather-clad Amazons; happy hookers; seemingly indestructible heroes, more fire-arms, revenge, strangely-shaped knives, stabbing people and getting stabbed (often with strangely-shaped knives)... the list goes on.
Overlaying the orgy of sad comic-book teenage fantasy is a wonderful visual landscape. It is peopled though by cardboard cut-out characters, who woodenly spout clichéd drivel (the chief graduate of the Chippendale school of thespianism on parade is Brit, Clive Owen... maybe he just gave up on the tosh). They perpetually do and say obscene things to each other with a botoxed lack of facial expression. In fact, everything other than the artwork is disgracefully poor in Sin City, which I suppose is indicative of its comic-book origin; indeed, it is a sort of animated ultra-violent comic-book. Even the soundtrack is dull; at least Tarantino produces ultra-violent fantasy films with interesting background music.
Sadly, many teenage boys will drool over this film. Even more worrying is that many grown men I know think it's a brilliant film too... I think about them differently after they tell me this. I strongly suggest any parents with teenage boys encourage them to watch hardcore pornography instead... it will screw them up, but marginally less than watching a film like Sin City.