Sin City
After seeing Sin City two of our friends described it as the best film they'd seen, and one found it disturbing and sick. Naturally this was essential viewing.
Luckily they were all right. Sin City is one of the first films - if not the first and only film - I've seen where the overwhelming use of CGI has actually been entirely justified. Too many filmmakers are dipping into their toyboxes these days and using CGI for anything and everything. So what if the director wants to 'express his imagination' or give us an 'adventure beyond imagination' (eh? Beyond imagination??)?
Guess what, the audience has plenty of imagination - it's how they can sit in a darkened room for two hours and pretend they're off somewhere else. And what about things like 'unprecedented visuals' or giving the audience something 'they've never seen before'? Let me remind you - Jaws had a dumb looking rubber shark, which didn't even work properly by all accounts, and it's one of the best films ever.
The Twit Brothers had millions to spend on The Matrix Unloaded, promising it would be unlike anything we'd ever seen. It was shite. And there's plenty of that around. But I digress...
The point is that Sin City, the film, probably couldn't have existed without CGI, and if it had it almost certainly wouldn't be the live action graphic novel that Miller and Rodriquez managed to create. In fact, even in black and white - especially in black and white - Sin City is one of the best looking films I've ever seen. Forget George Lucas, the so-called grandmaster of the digital revolution. The murky monochrome backdrops of Sin City are far more inspiring visually than anything I've seen in the overstuffed Star Wars prequels.
Fortunately there's more than just pretty pictures to look at. I've read only one of the original comic books, but its clear that Frank Miller has taken the pulp noir style and, pretty much like he did with Batman, reinvented it for a new age. This is the classic Spillane, Spade, Marlowe style but using characters that would leave Bogart a bleeding, pulpy mass in the gutter. The men are all but indestructible, kill without hesitation when they have to, and seem to be loyal only to the women around them. The women, meanwhile, are tough as nails - though arguably still fit into the male comic book fantasy scenario and generally need the men to come to their rescue. I'm sure there are some reformed males somewhere in Sin City, but they're probably lying in the gutter with old Bogey. Likewise clean-living, independent women have no place in Sin City either. Were you expecting Dawson's bloody Creek?
I do have two complaints. The first is Jessica Alba. I will admit I'm already biased against her, with her lack of personality, vacant eyes and bleach-blonde hair. She was easily the weakest link in an otherwise incredible cast. Her sappy (lack of) persona did rather suit the sappy character she played ("Oh I tried to fall in love with other boys, but it was only ever yoooooo"), but she was clearly out of her depth and didn't really deserve to be appearing in this movie. Also - and this might be a male perspective - but don't sign up to play a stripper and then complain to the director that you have a problem going topless or bottomless. What if Robert de Niro had signed up for Raging Bull and then told Scorsese: "Yeah, but I don't really want to do any of that boxing"?
Other than that the film was maybe a little long (that said I'm looking forward to the DVD which will reportedly feature all three stories uncut - difference is I won't have to sit and watch it all in one go). Also, Mickey Rourke was great, about time we saw him doing his stuff again. In short: go and see it!
