Brilliantly designed, graphically superb,completely stupid

Rating: 7/10 (20 August 2006)

The strength of "Sin City" is also its biggest weakness as a film, and that is the fact that the Sin City graphic novels are horrible.
Rodriguez and Miller pulled no punches here - every cuss word, every act of horrific violence, every sexual perversion and fetish, every hardboiled plot device that Miller put in the three "Sin City" graphic novels that form the backbone of the movie - it's all here, undisguised and uncompromising. In fact, that's the most impressive aspect of the film - I wasn't sure anyone could manage to bring "Marv" to life, or to duplicate the chiaroscuro silhouettes of many of the panels, or the hyper-violent choreography of the fights, or sound design that duplicated the onomatopoeia of the the comic form...much less make it convincing...but they do. The mind boggles at the creativity and inventiveness that must have gone into the design aspects of the film.
So: Plus several stars for the startlingly faithful and evocative away Rodriguez (and Miller) brought the look and feel of Miller's "Sin City" to the big screen. As an exercise in style, this baby is easily a "10".Maybe even an "11".
On the other hand, subtract several stars for the fact that Miller has been writing like a complete spaz-bag since "Robocop 2" (the movie) and "Give Me Liberty" (the graphic novel). In fact, he has gone so far over the edge that I don't think he will ever manage to write a good story - or a line of dialog that doesn't clink like a lead washer on the sidewalk - again. For that matter, he seems to have stopped actually drawing as well, since the human figures in his latest books are just jumbled blobs of shape, color and texture. (Sin City #7, "To Hell And Back" is his worst yet in that regard, and "300" is nearly unreadable.) And yes, I recognize these are deliberate choices Miller is making - I just think they are terrible choices. (Note that I'm not saying Miller himself is actually a bad person - he's just turning into a bad writer and artist).
Seriously, the "Sin City" stories read like endless variations and ripoffs of Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key" and "Red Harvest", only aimed at sexually frustrated 12 year olds obsessed with leather and death metal....but with less charm and wit. OK, I'll admit that "Marv" gets off a few really good one-liners in the first one. But otherwise it's like chugging Worchestershire sauce - what is fine in small quantities will make you gag served as an unaccompanied main course.
There are some talented and charismatic actors and actresses in here, and they all chew the scenery something fierce. I don't blame them - that's what is called for here, and everyone is appropriate to their role. Of the "name" actors, Benecio Del Toro is the hardest for me to watch, since I like the guy a lot and he's so broadly overacting that it's hard to believe this is the same amazing actor from "Way Of The Gun" and "Traffic". I am a big Fan of Clive Owen as well, but found him hard to take in his role as "Dwight" here. That's not really his fault...it's because I hated "The Big Fat Kill" story the most of the three graphic novels adapted here. ("A Dame To Kill For" is at least funny in spots, and "That Yellow Bastard" is so revolting as to be actually fascinating. "The Big Fat Kill" is so stupid as to make no sense whatsoever.)
In summary: amazing looking movie, with a horrible, horrible script, but delivered with a lot of energy and conviction. The look and the conviction carry the day for me, but I can't rate it higher than a "7" because Miller needs to spend some time outside in the fresh air with a puppy and a kitten before he writes another graphic novel or screenplay. See it if you like Miller and you thought Robocop 2 was the ultimate movie. Or if you are (to quote Mike Nelson) a drunk, narcoleptic 8 year old. Or if you thought the trouble with Mickey Spillane's "Mike Hammer" books was that he just didn't go far enough.