Product Description: SIN CITY IS INFESTED WITH CRIMINALS, CROOKED COPS & SEXY DAMES: SOME SEARCHING FOR VENGEANCE, SOME FOR REDEMPTION AND OTHERS, BOTH.
Amazon.com: Brutal and breathtaking, Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a woman who ended up dead in his bed. In the second story, Dwight's (Clive Owen) attempt to defend a woman from a brutal abuser goes horribly wrong, and threatens to destroy the uneasy truce among the police, the mob, and the women of Old Town. Finally, an aging cop on his last day on the job (Bruce Willis) rescues a young girl from a kidnapper, but is himself thrown in jail. Years later, he has a chance to save her again.
Read our interview with Frank Miller.
Based on three of Miller's immensely popular and immensely gritty books (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard), Sin City is unquestionably the most faithful comic-book-based movie ever made. Each shot looks like a panel from its source material, and director Rodriguez (who refers to it as a "translation" rather than an adaptation) resigned from the Directors Guild so that Miller could share a directing credit. Like the books, it's almost entirely in stark black and white with some occasional bursts of color (a woman's red lips, a villain's yellow face). The backgrounds are entirely digitally generated, yet not self-consciously so, and perfectly capture Miller's gritty cityscape. And though most of Miller's copious nudity is absent, the violence is unrelentingly present. That may be the biggest obstacle to viewers who aren't already fans of the books and who may have been turned off by Kill Bill (whose director, Quentin Tarantino, helmed one scene of Sin City). In addition, it's a bleak, desperate world in which the heroes are killers, corruption rules, and the women are almost all prostitutes or strippers. But Miller's stories are riveting, and the huge cast--which also includes Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devin Aoki, Carla Gugino, and Josh Hartnett--is just about perfect. (Only Bruce Willis and Michael Madsen, while very well-suited to their roles, seem hard to separate from their established screen personas.) In what Rodriguez hopes is the first of a series, Sin City is a spectacular achievement. --David Horiuchi
Sleek, Entertaining, and Fun As Hell For one, I am not a fan of either graphic novels nor comic books (though I do not dislike them, they simply aren't my "thing"), though I do like the occasional movie based on the aforementioned. Sin City is such a movie, based on Frank Miller's gritty, crime fiction graphic novel. But that's not why Sin City is a really good movie, it's because it's extremely fun to watch.
Sin City, like Pulp Fiction (though nowhere as good =), heh), features little stories in one picture. But that's where the comparison really ends (don't even think about saying the dialogue or characters are anywhere as good). While Pulp Fiction has a lot of monologues and deals with such actions as cleaning out cars with chunks of blood, Sin City's three intertwining stories deal with more, erm, bigger plots (nothing quite like heists or bank robberies, though). Sin City's sotries are a bit unconvential as well, not pulling off the big, fantasy heists and bank robberies, but not mundanely trivia either. Perfect.
The cast and characters aren't terribly unique, consisting of cops, hookers, vigilantes, and overprotective boyfriends. The cast themselves are good, though there are some questionables. Bruce Willis, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Madsen, and the like are all respectable actors and do a great job, while others, most likely Jessica Alba (who in my opinion, is't half as pretty as people say she is), are pretty questionable when you think about. Fortuntaly, Jessica ALba doesn't say much in the movie, and just sits there.
But's it's the absolutely jaw dropping art style that makes Sin City stand out, giving it that absolutely slick and gritty style that just completes and trascends the movie into it's own. The extremely stylized black and white visuals pop out even more without the use of color, thanks to the amazing use of shadows and some aural like-glow over the whole thing (give or take). Words really can't do justice to it's style. It's even better with the setting, a fantastically designed dream city, with equal parts elegance and sleaziness, with personality in every apartmment, back alley, dock, and red light district. The select colorization, topping off the amazing art style, makes the colors pop out even more sensually, such as some gorgeous shots of a few of the women's eyes (except when it comes to that yellow dude, obviously). The soundtrack, with some use of saxophones, adds even more color, being misty, erotic, and smokey.
Supposedly, a sequal is due out, and if, in the future, Robert Rodriguez decides to make every story into a feature, I'll be sure to catch all of them in the movie theater. Hopefully, the sequals will be able to mantain what makes this movie great. For those who are looking for the next Pulp Fiction, stop looking because there is no such thing =). However, it's the type of film that Quentin Tarantino would have loved to make, and it's the type of the movie that all fans of that movie would love. Reccomended.
B
Sin City (2005)-Unique! Sin City (2005) After reading several Amazon reviews I saw there was no need to write another except to sign up as an additional uniquely satisfied customer. In the past I have been critical of films with too much explicit violence. Not so in the case of Sin City which expressed its screen violence filtered through wonderful comic book images which were both realistic and surrealistic at the same time. Very entertaining and interesting and I rate it at five stars.
Compared to The Spirit, this is a masterpiece Co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller (who clearly has a lot more to learn if you've seen his solo debut The Spirit), Sin City looks more and more impressive as flicks like Spirit and Watchmen strive to create the same excitement. It's $16 more than the standard DVD but it does contain both a restored theatrical edition as well as a lengthier Uncut Edition that was clearly put together with a lot of care. Loads of extras include Rodriguez hosting a "15 Minute Film School" among much else. A digital copy would have put this over the top. Pricey but worth it for hardcore fans. The Spirit ($39.99 on BluRay; Lionsgate) comes with a BluRay and standard DVD and digital copy and you won't enjoy watching any of them. Overheated and embarrassing adaptation of the classic hero. Visit me at michaelgiltz dot com.
Awesome Awesome picture and sound. Don't hasitate because its a black/white movie, its striking in visuals. If you loved the book, you will love this tranfer. A must buy
Theatrical or Episodes, not extended theatrical First of all, I give the film 5 stars, that said, the blu-ray is only worth 3.
Why? Because the best way to veiw the film is as a film, not as 4 short films. Yes, it's great to be able to veiw both ways, but, why is the additional footage not in the feature-legnth cut? The extended version is not a complete film, it's each story re-edited to separate short-stories. It's not the same tension or experience as the theatrical cut, which would be improved by the added footage.
Now the blu-ray quality is there, the film's AVC @ 22.mbps average, and the DTS MA is nice though I have yet to grasp why DTS MA is 24/48 and not 24/96 (truely thunderous audio!) Still, it's a visual feast, an excellent film. If you have the 2-disk DVD edition, this is the same thing, exactly, in hi-def.
Certainly worth the hi-def upgrade, but lacking a true extended cut.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
