A Stylish Hell

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2005)

The visuals alone kept me glued to the screen.
Basin City is the bleakest place on earth, and although the city itself is black and white, the characters exhibit many shades of gray.
Make no mistake, this is a guy movie. As much as I enjoyed it, I couldn't escape that fact. But then again, it's a moving comic book, and who are the biggest readers of comic books? Yup, guys.
While watching it, I realised that of the female characters, those who weren't helpless victims, were whores (the whores represented the "strong" female characters in the film). And of the whores, one was a traitor! I couldn't help but feel that the writer didn't like women very much.
There were a lot of noir elements. Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade wouldn't have looked out of place here. The film had a very 1940s look and feel. Police drove around in old cars, as did many characters, yet the characters looked essentially "modern".
If this film was done as a purely live action film, it probably would've been the goriest one of the year. They get around this by having the violence look "cartooney", and by having the blood run in odd colors.
Mickey Rourke was a knockout. For his performance, he earned every cent. He was a thug, maybe an ex-pug, a legbreaker, who knows? He was, in any case, an outcast, a fringe-dweller, who had a sweet side, and an incredible loyalty to a woman he'd only known for hours before her death.
Benicio Del Toro was excellent. He does great "sleaze". I didn't even realise it was him! One thing that bugged me, though, is that both he and Mickey Rourke seemed to speak in the same voice, which was a bit odd, especially as their 'bits' came one after the other.
Bruce Willis did a good job with his part, but he simply didn't appear to be old enough. Where were the makeup people with the latex stipple, who could've made him look over 60, as his character was meant to be? I found it laughable when, (unlike a "real" sixty-something unattached guy - or even the real Bruce Willis!), he kept rebuffing the advances of a hot, young blonde babe, who adored him.
In any case, this movie moved along pretty well, so that I was never bored. Perhaps it was the stunning visuals, with the occasional flashes of vivid color, that kept my attention.
Best viewed on the big screen, I think.