Alison and I went to see
Sin City on Friday. I've not been to see an 18 at the cinema in ages, so the adverts for online gambling and Southern Comfort surprised me a bit, but there you go.
The film was heavy duty - lots of violence, sex, violence, nudity, violence, blood, violence and violence. It was pretty violent too. In many ways it's impressive that they made a film out of it all, given the brutal, gritty nature of the original novels. They've done it though, and they've done well.
The film isn't all that deep in terms of story or character, but it does extremely well with what it's got. The stories and characters are engaging, and there's enough of what's necessary to get you engaged and close to the characters and what they're doing. I loved Mickey Rourke as the unstoppably hard Marv ("Is that the best you've got, you pansies?") on his rampage to find who killed the one woman who ever showed him any affection. The cast as a whole is very strong, with Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Willis... you name it.
The big deal with the film is the stylisation. The whole thing is in black and white with selected bits in colour to highlight things, mostly blood but also people's eyes and a couple of other things. The whole procedure leaves you with a very high contrast appearance with a few details picked out for extra emphasis, much like the comic books it's based on. It works really well, and it is like watching a full motion graphic novel.
I've come across some complaints that the movie ends up being style over substance. In many ways it's an accurate statement, but I don't think it's a bad thing. The style is so tied in with the substance that you couldn't really separate the two. The substance is that it's set in a gritty city with nasty, brutal characters committing grevious acts of revenge and violence. I'm not sure there is any other style than film noir for that something this intense. You couldn't do this sort of thing in full colour, partly because of the violence, but mostly because it would spoil the effect. The whole thing works together - you are telling comic book stories in a comic book manner.
On a slightly tangential note, I've read a
site or two this morning commenting on all the terrible things that go on in this film - the parental watch type sites. I find it slightly amusing to be honest. When you're dealing with a film called Sin City, that is rated 18, I think it's a bit redundant to be counting how many times someone says "ass" and taking note of who's smoking cigarettes and drinking irresponsibly. When people are having their limbs cut off and being decapitated, there's bigger things to worry about. I think it's fair to say that people under 18 shouldn't be watching this. For that matter, a lot of people over 18 probably shouldn't watch this, but I doubt they'd want to in the first place. Anyway!
The film is very good. It's hard hitting, grim stuff and it does exactly what it says on the tin and more. The characters, plot and dialogue are extremely suitable for the genre. The photography, effects and overall look of the film are stunning. The violence is outrageous and over the top, but if you can stomach that then the film is great.
Rambling review over.
