good individual stories but ...

Rating: 7/10 (18 April 2005)

I finally got to watch Sin City last weekend. Let me tell you. i was so excited. The movie posters and trailers really hyped me up with the cell shading style of the movie. Rodriguez and Miller has seamlessly blended the art of comic shaded style imagery with live action perfectly. The CG backdrop was awesome! So awesome that it made Jude Law's Sky Captain flick looked like child's play. However, as much as i loved the well crafted images and narrative story telling, i was shunned by the fact that it tells three stories one after another.
The most striking thing that you see in this movie is the dark sense of the movie. Rodriguez and Miller cleverly mixed dark colors like Black and White and Grey with just a few notable bright colors like the bright gold color of Goldie's hair or the bright yellow for Yellow Bastard. The individual noir style script for each stories is so well written that it blends well with the dark ambiance of the Sin City feel. Add to that the comic style shading and camera pans, and you got yourself a true unique cinema masterpiece.
On the down side, (now, I do realize that this is a retelling of 3 different books) and don't get me wrong either, it is a film that consist of three different stories. Each story was so well made that it kept you to the edge to your seat each time. But, hey i am a writer my self and my believe is that you need just one really good climax to a good movie and it is for a good reason. I was so excited on the first chapter about Marv but then it ends so quickly and suddenly it moved to another different story about Dwight and after that we are taken back in time for the Hartigan story and we get to see Marv again putting up a cameo in a bar. Each story moves too fast for me to feel any empathy for each character and as a story ends you find yourself trying to sympathize with a set of different characters. In my opinion Marv's story was the best and unfortunately it was the first story in the film. I am not saying that the two other stories were bad but it fell short of my expectation and to my dismay it got me disinterested.
In the end, i will have to commend Robert Rodriguez for pulling such an ambitious project. It is the most impressive comic stylized movie i've seen so far. Although i won't be back to watch it in the theater again, i will be sure to pick up a DVD copy. Like i said I love the first chapter but i'll skip the last two.