Style over Substance, Gore, Violence, Corruption & Cynicism for Their Own Sake

Rating: 3/10 (18 December 2011)

First off, I am no fan of Frank Miller, but I imagine most of the ravers for this film are. Okay, I can understand when a "writer" gets his "book" made into a film, his fans cheer regardless. 2nd, I like Rodriguez, he is a technically good fun director of clever action films. But Rodriguez is an acolyte of the king of cult gore, cynicism, pop culture exploitation and excess himself, he who must not be named.
But this film can't be a great, or even a good film in my estimation. There was nothing beautiful about it, in it's ugly setting of a worn out industrial city. Someone rendering comic book panels to story board drawings into film via green screen is not art, but mere technical work. It was ugly scenery, ugly people, ugly plots, tons of gratuitous violence, dialog that can only be described as a parody of noir genre. The actors were good, since they had the money & influence to get talent, but all for naught. There were no interesting lessons, exotic locations, fascinating plots or even a hint of moral lesson beyond it is up to damaged but good people to mercilessly exterminate evil ones. Revenge 101.
Watching documentary movie reels of Nazi and other totalitarian atrocities may have a guiginol appeal to people, but they are not entertainment, but they serve as a moral lesson about following evil political/religious faiths to their final horrible ends. Or even atomic bomb and firestorm damage to Axis cities serve as an example of better countries who resorted to horrible means to destroy worse ones. But this had none of that. We don't get just pedophile priests here, but cannibal ones. The corruption, nihilism & evil here were almost childishly displayed as the cynicism was dime store; whores of the heart of gold variety are as cliché as they get.
There is no scene, plot point or character here that I haven't seen before in a more real & human setting. It is just pure sleaze & violence to the point of just being vile.