| << Newer | Article #108 | Older >> |
Sin City
Looking back on it, it's pretty sad that it took until mid-April for a movie to seem interesting enough to get my butt in a theater. Prior to seeing Sin City, I was wholly unfamiliar with the comic books, but was definitely intrigued by the trailers and the buzz about this film. I was definitely not disappointed. (Surprisingly, I was able to convince Vera to join me, in spite of the warnings I'd given her that it was supposedly quite violent.)
I would categorize the setting and mood of the film as "extreme noir" — it had all the elements of traditional film noir just taken to (and sometimes beyond) their logical extremes. Most of the movie was filmed against a bluescreen, and the special effects, from the backgrounds to the color hilights, were very impressive and well-done. For the most part I didn't really feel like I was watching an effects-laden film, even though most of the world was artificial.
The stories themselves and the characters' reactions were all suitably over-the-top. As everyone seems to agree, Mickey Rourke steals the show as Marv, the main character in one of the three intertwining stories. I also really enjoyed Benicio Del Toro's turn as a thug in over his head (so to speak), and Elijah Wood's very creepy role.
In the end, this was a movie that was much more about style than substance. The plots were secondary to the visuals and the over-the-top dialogue. But frankly, that didn't bother me in the slightest, and I am really looking forward to seeing it again on DVD. 3.5/4 stars.