Overrated movie that will be forgotten within a year

Rating: 1/10 (18 August 2005)

Let me start by saying that Sin City does do a couple of things right: The use of mixed color and monochrome to establish a surrealistic gritty film noir atmosphere works well, and the cinematography ranges from above average to excellent.
Beyond that, I don't understand why so many viewers seem to like this movie. Maybe a lot of people have confused "LOOKS good" with "IS good". Maybe the director is paying people to come here and boost the rating.
Color and camera work aside, this movie has nothing else to offer. Like a shiny new sports car without an engine, it looks good but doesn't go anywhere. The true measure of any movie is simple: Does it entertain? For Sin City the answer is "no"! Here's why:
(The following text contains a couple of scene descriptions and a very generalized plot summary. If you consider those to be spoilers, then continue at your own risk.)
The characters are never developed. Some manage to be two-dimensional, but most barely rate even one dimension. The "action" sequences, when they finally happen, are protracted and dull. There is plenty of mindless violence, but it's hard to care about it since the characters to whom it's happening are so shallow and meaningless. In fact, I have one further complaint about the violence - it's too cartoonish to be taken seriously, but not cartoonish enough to be funny.
On the subject of funny... There are a few deliberate attempts at humor, but they are mostly on the level of "Gilligan's Island" slapstick; they fall flat in this darker environment. (A nameless lackey is shot through the chest with an arrow - he looks at the arrow, then asks if someone will call a doctor for him. No one pays attention to him. No one calls a doctor.) These deliberate attempts at humor are matched by the number of times the film is funny when it isn't supposed to be. (A savage dog attacks one of the characters. He defends himself by knocking it unconscious with a punch. I think this was supposed to be dramatic, but instead it was awkwardly reminiscent of the better-done scene in "Blazing Saddles" where Mongo punches the horse.)
What about the plot, you might ask? Yes, Sin City does have a plot (which makes it better than some movies I've seen), but it's a pretty thin one: "Lots of bad people live in town. Some good people live there too. Bad things happen to all of them." In this movie the good guys don't win, but the bad guys do harm each other quite a lot.
My last complaint is about the narration. Used properly, narration is an important tool of the True Crime / Film Noir genres, advancing the plot and revealing hidden depths within the characters. However, in a movie with weak plot and weaker characters, continuous narration is a useless appendage. Here it is even worse, being overused to the point of actually becoming an annoyance. Like a balloon that has used up all it's hot air (and this narration has a LOT of hot air), it hangs limp and impotent, weighing down the movie and dragging it to a halt.
Conclusion: By next year (summer 2006) only film historians will remember this movie exists. Everyone who actually saw it will have long since forgotten about it.