Sin City... WTF?!00:10 Apr 16 2005
Times Read: 1,141
"Let's not turn this into a movie. That would really ruin it. Let's take cinema and turn it into a living graphic novel. Let's turn it into this book."
-- Robert Rodriguez, the Director of "Sin City", discussing how he wanted to bring Sin City to the screen.
From an NPR Radio interview conducted with Frank Miller by Kevin Smith, aired April 1, 2005
Moviegoers beware! If you are thinking about going to see the new movie "Sin City", I pray you are either a fan of Frank Miller's original graphic novels,
really like Film Noir, or are a huge fan of non-stop violent movies. Otherwise, save your money.
First, I read "The Hard Goodbye" from the
Sin City graphic novels a long time ago and I wasn't really into it. Not because it wasn't a good story, because I just thought as an homage to Film Noir in graphic novel form, it played more like a rough and tumble Dick Tracy strip. I've been a huge fan of other Frank Miller works (like the incredible Batman story, "The Dark Knight Returns"), so I wanted to see how
Sin City made it to the screen.
I've also got to say I'm a big fan of Robert Rodriguez's movies, like "From Dusk Till Dawn", and since having kids, the "Spy Kids" franchise is a big hit in my household. The chance to see him do a stylized graphic novel and bring it to the screen had me really looking forward to this. He succeeded with the visuals! Scene-for-scene this movie is almost a panel-for-panel breathe of life for the book. To say this movie is visually stunning is an understatement. This isn't a standard "black and white" movie, this has the contrast jacked up like a graphic novel would, and the interjections of red, blue, and yellow, where needed were fantastic.
I'm also a fan of just about everyone they cast in this movie. What an amazing cast they brought to this movie, too. Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Benecio Del Torres, Rosario Dawson, Carla Gugino, Jessica Alba, Alexis Bledel, and on and on..
So now I'm asking myself, why was this movie the biggest waste of time and money I've ever put down for a film? I mean, if I may be as brutal as the characters in this movie, this was a f'n piece of crap! The dialogue...Aarrgh! The dialogue is what ruined this movie! I mean, I got it.
Film noir. The men are tough scum, and the women are femme-fatales. There's not a hero in the bunch, and they all have a sad, dark tale to tell.
Yet here's this ultra-modern movie, one that almost screams "This Is What CGI Was Made For", and it has this lame gangster/gumshoe movie trash stringing it together! WTF?! I can't even accept this on the kitschy/campy level. It was just crap! To discover that this practically comes word for word from the books make me remember why I only read the one!
Mind you, I had the same reaction to "Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow" -- a visually delicious movie, yet no real plot and crap for dialogue. Please don't let this become the new rage in film! Eye candy wrapped around trash!
Mickey Rourke turns in the only believable performance of the bunch. But that's probably because he's so buffed up and covered by (excellent) makeup work, that you *see* Marv, not Mickey. From "The Hard Goodbye", you expect Marv to be this big, ugly, confused, brute of a man who no one could love, get his great one-night-stand, and then seek revenge on the people responsible for her murder. Maybe because I read "The Hard Goodbye", I had expectations for it that were met.
Clive Owen is OK in his story alongside Rosario Dawson bringing "A Dame To Kill For" to a decent stand on the screen. But that's it. I love Bruce Willis, but he was NOT Hartigan, a cop in his late-sixties, from "That Yellow Bastard". I'm not panning the acting because I honestly did not believe the words that came out of their mouths. That's not bad acting or directing. That's bad writing, pure and simple. And it breaks my heart to say this about Frank Miller.
This movie is long and drawn out because they took those three Sin City stories and tied them together. I think if they'd focused on "The Hard Goodbye", drawn out some background to set a stage if you will, and had some uncanned dialogue, this movie would have been a LOT better. If it had succeeded, they could have made a franchise from the other books.
Instead they wasted two hours of cinema. That's just me, of course. If you like "classic Film Noir", dangerous dames, boobs, guns, guns, guns, and blood, then by all means, I bet you'll like this movie. It's probably destined to be the next cult hit.
If you like Tarantino-esque movies and were expecting that instead of a graphic novel, go see "Be Cool" instead. THAT was a great movie!
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