I must have seen Sin City about 4 times in the cinema. I was living in Canada at the time and the particular theater we would go to was about 3 times the size of any here in Ireland. We saw it every Friday for a month or so and then hit the pub. It was just that kind of movie. You could watch happily watch it again and again as long as there was someone with you who hadn't seen it! I have watched it once or twice on DVD since, but not for a while so I figured I'd make it my next revisit.
As far as I'm concerned,
Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's only good movie. That may seem like a bold statement, but I just never bought into the whole "He's crappy cos he's pulpy" argument. If I were really into guns, babes, blood, and silliness more than story and a genuine attempt to make something with at least a teeny tiny bit of artistic merit I would surely enjoy his movies, but I'm not. Thats just me, don't take it as an insult if it ain't you! Anyway, it also turns out that the man has an absolutely fantastic eye for style(even if he doesn't for substance) which I do appreciate, and
Sin City just happens to work very well with pretty much that alone! mainly because thats how Frank Miller wrote the stories in the first place. Those comics are the ultimate male fantasy really. All of the men are either ultra cool and hard as nails heroes or low down, dirty, ultra cool hard as nails bastards. And all of the women are quite literally smokin hot, hard as nails whores. The world is a sleazy Noir paradise, with predominate black and white, and flashes of crimson when the blood spills(which is often). Rodriguez manages to capture this perfectly. It may well be the most faithful adaptation of a comic we have, or will ever see. He focuses on 3 volumes of Miller's stories. The Hard Goodbye focuses on Marv(Mickey Rourke), who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of the hooker he loves' killer. The Big Fat Kill, which focuses on Dwight(Clive Owen) getting involved in a street war between a group of prostitutes in Old Town and a group of mercenaries. And That Yellow Bastard, which follows an aging police officer Hatigan(Bruce Willis) protecting Nancy(Jessica Alba) from a grotesquely disfigured serial child killer. Although Rodriguez mixes around a few details and shifts some time frames about(skipping over the events of A Dame To Kill For for instance) its all pretty much spot on. The film is unrelentingly violent but in such a comic book way that its hard to be really disturbed by it at all. The performances are also comic book however. Its not necessarily a bad thing, but aside from Mickey Rourke(who excels as Marv), and to a lesser extent Bruce Willis as Hartigan nobody else really gets beyond one note. This may very well have been intentional of course, and it works just fine for this movie. But as hot as the all of the ladies are (Carla Gugino and Jessica Alba being the highlights in that respect) their acting is just a bit flat, as is Clive Owen's as Dwight. The villains fare a bit better. Rutger Hauer, Nick Stahl, Powers Booth and Benicio Del Toro all do a decent job at playing some supremely nasty pieces of work. But like I said, it just works for this movie. The dialog also ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, but again, all part of the comic book vibe.
If you look at the credits for the film, it lists Rodriguez and Frank Miller as co- Directors, with Quentin Tarantino as "Guest Director". No doubt having the comic's creator on board the production helped immensely, but I'm also guessing old QT had a bit more to do with the finished product than we may realize. Thats not to take too much away from Rodriguez, despite my dislike of his earlier films this is without a doubt a great accomplishment, and hands down one of the most entertaining and flat out cool movies out there. The fact that the film is so faithful, and in many ways just the comic plastered up on the screen has brought it in for some criticism. After all, whats the point in adapting something if you can the same experience from reading the comic? Its a valid point, but in this instance, I think its the only way it could be done and I'm glad it was. There has been talk from RR and various cast members(including the rumored Angelina Jolie) about going back to basin City for a sequel. But its always spoken about as "sometime in the future". I really hope we get to see some more of Frank Miller's great stories up on a really big screen at some point, sooner rather than later.