Holy crap. It’s not often that I leave a movie feeling jazzed with adrenaline, and wanting more. And Sin City did just that. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller (and more importantly, written by Miller based on his own graphic novels), this film rocks. Plain and simple. It’s neo-noir, and has an incredibly stylized look to it. It has a great pace, and the 124-minute running time flies by quickly.
The film follows three different storylines, but they are all connected in small ways. I’m not going to get into the details – just know that there are no real “good” heroes here. Everyone has their hands dirty in some way. And most characters have a messy end. When you see this film, you’ll be grateful that much of it is black and white (and various colors) since the blood would just be way too much to deal with normally. It’s super violent. Certainly not for the faint of heart!
The film was shot digitally, and was projected digitally when I saw it, resulting in a super-clean look that was just awesome. The visual effects served the storyline well, but on occasion were, well, very obvious. Musically it was interesting – three different composers (Rodriguez, John Debney and Graeme Revell) scored the different storylines. But there was definitely some continuity going on – and it all worked really well.
The cast lineup is a veritable who’s who, but noteworthy actors were Bruce Willis as the best noir cop I’ve seen in years (the voiceovers helped!); Clive Owen as a criminal who helps out Rosario Dawson and her gang of ass-kicking prostitutes; Elijah Wood as the very disturbing cannibal Kevin; Carla Gugino for, well, taking off her clothes; Benicio del Toro for playing a very good corpse; and finally, Mikey Rourke as a woman-respecting tough-guy.
Definitely check this one out – it’s the only film of 2005 so far that I feel I might go see in theaters again, and pay for!