It was a sin to have been made

Rating: 4/10 (3 December 2005)

-Many Spoilers- Note: Skip to the third-to-last paragraph for a shorter version!
Is this what passes for cinema nowadays? Violence, Nudity and some cool special effects make a film good? I don't think so.
Sin City is a collection of four stories in some city full of crime. The first story centers around a guy named Hartigan who is trying to rescue a kidnapped child named Nancy. The bad guy happens to be a son of a senator. So, anyways we should move onto the flaws. The story moves way to fast for its own good, which makes it lack lots of depth. It is like Robert Rodriguez expected us to easily follow along with this movie.
Take the scene with the hit man taking Hartigan. They point a gun to his back. Seconds later, Hartigan is at their base. A couple seconds later, he beats them up, and finds out who sent the hit men to take him. Then, the scene is over within two minutes, and makes the film look shallow. To add to that, a new character with short screen time is introduced every couple seconds, but it doesn't matter does it, because all the characters are all the same!
There are about five types of characters in the film: 1) The hero guy who doesn't like guys who mistreat women. 2) The weak villain who likes to mistreat women, and gets beat up by character number one. 3) The woman who doesn't have enough brains to realize that she might freeze to death if she doesn't have any clothes on. 4) The hit man/mercenary/criminal/henchman that dies within a minute. 5) The evil guy who must be stopped. Too bad that introducing a new character makes up most of the twists.
The second is about a guy named Marv who had a girlfriend named Goldie, who was murdered, and Marv spends the story searching for the murderer. The characters are the same, except the villain is a wannabe Hannibal Lector who enjoys killing naked women, just like Norman Bates (Psycho). This story suffers all the problems of the first, except the action is more unrealistic and the story is way more adult. Marv takes millions of bullet shots, a car hitting him, and some more tortures, yet he miraculously survives. As for being more adult, we are treated to more women for forgot to get dressed, and one who had their hand eaten off by the wannabe Hannibal Lector.
The third story is okay. It starts off with "character number 2" (Jackie Boy) mistreating "character number 3", until "character number 1" (Dwight) shows up. Dwight teaches Jackie Boy a lesson by dunking him in an unnecessarily un-flushed toilet. Then Jackie Boy runs away, and Dwight chases after him. They end up in Old Town, where "character number 3" is numerous. They kill Jackie Boy, who happens to be a cop, which threatens some treaty made between the prostitutes of Old Town and the police. So, Dwight and the girls who are half-naked in the cold rain set out to dispose of the body and fix the treaty or whatever. What I found really odd about this particular story was that it gives women a bad name, and makes them look superior to men after they kill Jackie Boy and his gang. Now, do you really want to "do it" a girl who could kill you? So, the rest of the story is just introducing more bad guys.
The fourth is a continuation of the first. I think I actually liked it. Hartigan is released from jail, and tries to find Nancy after a mutilated finger was sent to him. (I think he was put in for hurting the Senator's son.) Nancy has been writing letters, and when the finger is sent to him, he suspects the bad guys have found Nancy. It turns out that Nancy is safe and sound, and actually an exotic nightclub dancer. It also turns out that the Senator's son is back, except he is a yellow freak of nature. Why? Well, in the first story, Hartigan "took his weapons away" which means he shot him in between the legs. (I don't understand why that was necessary.) So, after they re-built his "thing" there were some side-effects. This story is actually good, but only because it takes everything from the first story. It just introduces the same characters grown-up, and the same lines delivered once again, except they are delivered more seriously this time around.
>>>In short; Sin City's story is un-developed and shallow, the characters are all similar, the story also seems to be repeated, (even the twists) the action was disappointing and the naked women may offend some. The lines delivered are somewhat gross, for no apparent reason. ("I'll cut you in ways that will make you useless to a woman.") It's an obvious style-over-substance that doesn't seem to fulfill what we expected. I'm sure there was even more.<<<
There are many hits and misses to Sin City, but they are not evenly weighed. Just because a film is the "coolest movie of the year" does not mean it is the best. Besides, for a film considered nothing but "visually stunning" and "artistic" the action was disappointing. The only thing artistic was the black and white mixed with various colors to represent the comic panels.
If you've seen Mystic River, then you will know the phrase "We bury our sins. We wash them clean." So, bury this sin and wash it clean from your memory. Or, you can sell it on E-bay.
5/10
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