Triumph of Style over Substance

Rating: 3/10 (30 July 2005)

I went to see this with a 61 year old female friend. She eventually had to avert her eyes and we left after about 45 minutes! I myself could deal with the more-or-less pornographic violence, but really nothing prepares the viewer for it. Viewers who are connoisseurs of Frank Miller's work will appreciate the movie best, and it must seem heaven-sent where they are concerned. Perhaps they find the grotesque violence--which is entirely gratuitous--somehow satisfying? However I believe that from an objective point of view that the various stories are pointless and don't really go anywhere. What is this movie telling us? That serious corruption exists in the world? We know that already, but in fact this movie parodies the real evils of the world and makes them seem un-real and cartoonish to the degree that a naive viewer might dismiss the problem of evil as being entirely imaginary. The closest any of the male characters come to showing any virtue is when they seek revenge, which is not a virtue at all, nor is it manly. I am dismayed to see that this movie has made it into the Top 250. It is not a great movie, it is merely different. The style is so different that it is refreshing, but in the end it is just a sugar-rush, and most viewers will quickly tire of it, I hope.