Target audience will love it & it's a nice contrast to the usual summer fare but the sexual violence and depiction of women will be a problem to some

Rating: Null/10 (20 June 2005)

There is no denying that, for a mainstream Hollywood summer blockbuster that visually Sin City is impressively different, stylish and quite daring. Not only does it provide George Lucas with a simple lesson in how to effectively use a blue screen, but it also provides an experience that looks unique and fascinating to be worth a look. The characters are all larger than life, the backdrops drip with smoke, grim, corruption and hopelessness and only occasionally does the CGI look clunky or the actors have the body language of people who are totally disconnected from their surroundings. The mix of black/white and colour is perhaps a bit obvious but is still a nice touch and, although I didn't think it pulled it off, the attempts at film noir played well with genre clichés.
Because the stories and characters are larger than life, the narratives do struggle a bit and it is only their pace and unrelenting grim violence that makes it possible to stick with it. However after about an hour I had got the idea (it is stylish, gritty and violent) and it didn't have much more after that  I never got bored but the more time went on the less impressed I was by it. The style of the film is grimy but it is no film noir in the sense that those familiar with the genre with be used to  instead of being suggestive it is blatant, instead of being sensual it is vampish, instead of being dark it is gory. While this is not a major problem in itself, the film does feel like it is dressing in clothes that are too big for it and aping films that made this all look so effortless many decades ago. Despite this, it was still so far so good  not enough substance perhaps but the style and genre clichés still were enjoyable.
The only really troubling aspects of the film come in the form of the women. All the characters are stereotypes designed to appeal to the adolescent male in the audience  whatever age he may actually be; men are grizzled, bloodied and yet somehow invincible until their heroic poetic deaths while the women are gorgeous, sexual and available. Although hardly useful for a character driven film (which this never is) it would have been acceptable  certainly these are roles that endless action movies cast the two sexes into. However with Sin City there is a constant, unpleasant air of sexual violence and fetishistic domination of these women that left a bad taste in my mouth  I'm sure the film is just being true to the material but it is difficult to swallow nonetheless. In noir, the women are often controlling of the men and if anyone destroys them, it is often themselves. Here women are beaten and they like it, they need men to protect them from other men, they are gorgeous but give it up like it was a bad habit, generally they are not defined by who they are but by what they are  "dykes", strippers, whores, rape victims and killers; that they are not real people is not a problem but the film's depiction and use of them within the narrative goes beyond the mere "trophyism" of music videos and adverts and is very close to being misogyny so harsh and spiteful it is.
Thanks to the pace and style though, I was mostly able to put this out of my mind and enjoy it as a comic book noir that appeals to those who like the noir style without having to watch old films and miss out on extreme violence and MTV flesh. Miller deserves credit for the style but Rodriguez brings it to life convincingly well. His cast are mostly good because they buy into it with such conviction, although, lets be honest here, other than the makeup and gruff voices, the male actors didn't have a massive stretch of their skills. Willis plays a role he had played so often it must be like second; Rouke is better because his character seems dumber and driven by love for a woman that didn't care for him (see  that's film noir) and I liked what he did with it. Stahl is pretty good and Clive Owen takes to the "hard man cool" like a duck to water. The male support cast are pretty good even if Boothe, Duncan, Hauer and Wood just come and go in minor roles. The women all look great and that is pretty much all that is asked of them. Dawson is gorgeous and playful but can't have been comfortable in those clothes; Murphy does her usual playful smile thing but just don't expect her to bring any gravitas to a character thrown between abusive, doomed men  not only doesn't she, she never tries. Alba is OK for all she does but the presence of Aoki proves that it is more who than what you know in the business. None of the women are that good but then this is not a women's film and they are only there for one thing.
Overall, complaining about male/female stereotypes in a summer blockbuster is a bit like taking a bath and moaning about getting wet, but the degree of sexual violence and the depiction of women does take some swallowing and will be a big problem to some viewers. The grimy style may smack of someone aping noir rather than "doing" noir but it is at least refreshingly different from the usual summer fare. The lack of depth is a minor problem but it still works thanks to the pace and engagingly gritty and dark story lines leaving me in no doubt that (as shown by the presence of Tarantino) that this will have the geeky "fan-boy" target audience hunched over, furiously loving every minute of it.