Worse than Attack of the Clones

Rating: 1/10 (7 June 2005)

I was utterly shocked at how much I hated this film. Now I very much believe in the creative freedom and expression of art, be it sculpture, painting, music, whatever. I understand the nature of the graphic novels. Much of them recreate that distinct moment, a shot in time, creating intimacy out of even the most brutal of actions. I really liked Miller's Sin City comics and the trailers for this film certainly demonstrated a first: the actual comic itself was on screen.
Nothing was left to interpretation or consideration from any kind of point of view. No actual script was written, just the whole thing plonked on film. In this case it would be churlish to call it an 'adaptation', more a reproduction. Unfortunately, although Sin City is incredibly effective on the page, it's dreadful in the cinema.
Its saving grace is that Sin City is wonderful to look at, but it is so utterly empty. I don't think I have ever been impressed by a Rodriguez film (Spy Kids passed me by). Its unforgivable soullessness scuppered it from the beginning. Much of the crowd I was with where the reprehensible 'cool' bunch who thought much of the violence (a lot of it against women) was funny and there were a couple of cheers here and there. Granted it made me laugh, but most often out of sheer disbelief.
***SPOILER*** It irritated me. I found myself hoping that the psychotic cannibal Kevin (Elijah Wood) would actually tear Mickey Rourke's character apart (in graphic slow-motion  sheesh(!), this film HAS affected me). I hated the character of Marv; he was such a phoney creation. The dialogue (although fine in the comic), when spoken aloud, was worse than George Lucas, yet it is hailed a work of genius, a masterpiece, cool. Well thank you Beavis and Butthead. Also, when Benicio Del Toro's character (almost pantomime villain territory here, with added claws) was discovered to be the cop who was keeping the peace between the law, mobs and prostitutes, it occurred to me, why didn't they recognise him at first? Almost every prostitute in Old Town was there.
Hartigan's (Bruce Willis) ongoing saga of his heart attack was conveniently forgotten so he could kill off the yellow Star Trek reject in the last story, and then blows his own brains out. Surely it would have been more poetic to have his heart fail at the last? The ultimate broken heart? ***END SPOILER*** Well that's a tad cheesy as well, but no less worse than this detritus. And I'm not the film maker here. And it just WENT ON! I wanted it to stop at several points which, unfortunately for me, turned out to be half way through. This is coming from a man who adores The Return of the King. That's how tedious this film is.
It's the Patrick Bateman of films, beautiful, soulless and utterly ugly underneath. Doubtless Rodriguez will be lauded for this, the cinematic equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes.