"Sin City"

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2008)

I had heard the hype, the glories thrown at the feet of this film, read the snide comments thrown at subsequent films which apparently were trying to be like "Sin City". So, when the time came, I knew I had to watch this film.
I am SO glad I did. This film blew me away from pretty much the first minute. The wonderful use of monochrome with the little splashes of colour truly make this a fantastical, yet realistic world. The big name stars are all impressive, particularly Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke. The violence is a weird but brilliant mixture of realism and cartoonish - we never see the full extent to a lot of the gory scenes, at least we didn't in the cut I watched. But a splash of blood - and there's a lot of it in this film - is all we need to see to know that, whatever's happening off screen, it ain't pretty.
I think the true success of the film has to be Frank Miller's co-direction. This is, after all, his baby, and it's such an inspired though obvious idea to have him direct the feature film of his graphic novel. With him at the helm you can be sure that no fan boys will be disappointed. Although I haven't read the books myself, I want to now, that's for sure, and that's part of "Sin City"'s magic.
I do have one or two little nit picking problems - Jessica Alba, though gorgeous, doesn't really have much to do here apart from snog Bruce Willis and be generally mistreated by most of the other blokes. And Clive Owen is great, but is the character supposed to be English, or could he not be bothered to join the rest of the male cast in their deep, gravelly American voices? That's another little problem I had - nearly all the main blokes sounded the same. Were they supposed to?
On the whole though, a great film! Can't wait for the proposed sequel - this one I'll HAVE to see at the cinema!
8/10