commits the ultimate movie sin... it's boring.

Rating: 2/10 (2 April 2005)

Basically, it's three stories (four if you count the bit before the title) crammed into one disjointed mess of a movie. The source materials are three comics mini-series: "Sin City," "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard." Sort of in that order. Sort of.
The movie starts out with an original short before the title, mainly just to set the mood, but also to introduce the Josh Hartnett character who reappears later. You can largely disregard it, because it's inconsequential to the overall movie.
The first sequence is the Bruce Willis segment, "That Yellow Bastard." Well, the first part of the Bruce Willis segment. It gets cut about a third of the way into it. So, we'll have to come back to it.
Next up is the Mickey Rourke segment, the original "Sin City" serial which ran in the comics anthology Dark Horse Presents. Bad prosthetics makeup on Marv (Rourke) conjures memories of the Dick Tracy movie. Other than giving a pre-glimpse of the killer, the story is taken whole cloth from the comic. Which is a bad thing, because the villains' motivations are still extremely vague. Exploring that some might have made this a more interesting story. Marv's infamous "Is that all ya got, ya pansies?" line was one of only two laughs in the movie (the other being the arrow guy in the Clive Owen segment). This segment has all the breasts (yep, that's all the tits you get). Watch for an appearance by Frank Miller himself as a priest.
Then comes the Clive Owen segment, "The Big Fat Kill." See, the problem with this part is that it's a sequel to a previous story entitled "A Dame to Kill For." Dwight McCarthy (Owen) makes a reference to having a "new face," but that doesn't make any sense without the context of the previous story. Which isn't in this movie. It probably would've been best to just leave out this segment entirely, because it really has no bearing on the other two segments. The film's overall run time is too long, anyway, so this would have been a beneficial cut. Benicio Del Toro chews the CGI scenery, which is really the only redeeming quality this installment has.
***SPOILER***
In the comic, the Alexis Bledel character (Becky) is killed in the prostitutes' ambush. Here she survives to show up again in the very final scene. Presumably meeting her fate at the hands of Josh Hartnett, who was paid by Rosario Dawson's character. A rather clumsy way of trying to make the middle segment fit, but apparently serves the traditional purpose of "bookends" on an anthology-type presentation.
***END SPOILER***
Then we get back to the Bruce Willis episode. What was his storyline again? After being pummelled for over an hour with the other two stories, it's hard to recall. Okay, yeah. I remember now. Anyway, there's some editing of the original script here (for example, Willis' character's wife never actually appears in the movie), for whatever reasons. Some details reveal that this *entire* segment occurred chronologically before the Mickey Rourke segment, not just the part that played prior to it in the movie. Probably very confusing for those who haven't read the comics!
There's another quick flash of the Elijah Wood character (this also happened in the comics), which doesn't make any sense other than to further establish that this event took place before the Marv section. Wood's character was a man of action and heightened awareness, and should have been involved in the final fight. But he wasn't. Oh, well.
***SPOILER***
Dangling threads:
The "evil senator" (portrayed by Powers Boothe rather than Chelcie Ross, which would have been a clever bit of stunt-casting) doesn't get a comeuppance. I can't remember right now if he ever did in the comics, but it would have been a more satisfying experience if this point were addressed in the movie.
Also, we still don't know whose finger that was in the envelope.
***END SPOILER***
So, in summary...
Bad makeup
Bad CGI
Bad acting all 'round, by people we've come to expect better from
Bad dialogue that was often even corny in a comic book
Plot and pacing lifted directly from the comics, not adapted at all to fit the needs of the different medium
I give this movie 2/10 stars. I'm so generous only because the main complaints about movie adaptations are so often how they aren't true to their source materials. Whereas this one is like ninety-five percent accurate. Unfortunately, this film is probably also the best reason *WHY* movie adaptations shouldn't be literally copied from their source materials.