Violence for the sake of violence.

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2005)

Fans of the Sin City comic will be dually impressed by this slick presentation. It's true that the film adaption is wonderful. But fans of true film noir will scoff at its pop bottle simplicity. What we have here is fire works for the eyes, nothing else. There are stories of revenge stacked on stories of revenge with absolutely no redeeming value. It is violence of the sake of violence. The stories are surface stories at best, a kiddy pool filled with the yellow stuff. There are so many plot holes that I'd have to break into a spoiler warning and take the day off work to get started.
This flick was filled with great acting and fantastic direction, but the stories were shallow and mean. Expect to see no more than two minority characters, expect to see few men under thirty, and no women over thirty. Expect the women to wear nothing but their underwear. Expect the men to beat on themselves until the blood flows out in rivers. Torture, violence, greed, sex, and all with nothing to treasure in the end.
A good reflection of the weak stories is the poor dialog. "She smelt like you'd think an angel would smell." It is filled with campy metaphor like it is filled with bullets. It saddens me that this fodder is what passes for great story telling these days. Go see the flick for its wonderful presentation, but look for nothing more. It would be like slapping a gold cover on a book, and filling its guts full of wood.
The sad part, the part that really grabs me, is that Frank Miller, the writer, Rob Rodriguez, the director, and Q. Tarentino, guest director, are all very talented people. They could do great things with their gifts, bring something redeeming to the world, but they don't. What you got here is money making. They know that America's youth is a pack of lust monkeys for violence, and they exploit it. A sad, sad state of affairs.