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rowynA short, spoiler-free version:
The film is eeriely authentic to the story arcs it's taken from the comic book. Not just in plot and dialogue, but in style, camera angle, and chosen shots. The filmmakers essentially used the comic book as a storyboard. It's an extraordinarily faithful adaptation. The technical achievement in doing that, alone, is impressive. (Here's a frame-by-frame comparison based on some of the trailers and early footage released, and that'll give you an idea of just how faithful it is. Also chock-full of spoilers, so I don't recommend it if you've neither seen the movie or the comic book. And NOT WORK SAFE.)
That said, it's a faithful adaptation of a sex-and-violence-laden, film-noir-style comic book. If you like movies like "Pulp Fiction", you should enjoy this film. (Lut suggests "Kill Bill" would be a better comparison, and that "Pulp Fiction" is less violent than "Sin City". I haven't seen "Kill Bill", myself.) But this is definitely not a film that everyone would enjoy. I have a reasonably high tolerance for violence, but some of the scenes made me nauseous; one of them even turned Lut's stomach a bit.
Some of the actors do a great job of capturing their characters. Mickey Rourke's Marv feels right, as does Bruce Willis's Hartigan. Jessica Alba didn't quite cut it for me as Nancy Callahan, though. In fact, even the little-girl Nancy didn't quite fit. Part of it was physical: young Nancy in the comic book is a skinny little kid with a narrow face and big eyes. In retrospect, probably no living child would quite look right. Maybe a girl who'd just gone through a growth spurt -- you know how kids can be, when they grow six inches in a year and don't gain any weight to compensate. Ms. Alba is fairly attractive, but she's on the thin side, while adult Nancy from the comic is more curvy.
Frank Miller also drew many loving panels of Nancy Callahan, who works as a stripper, dancing in a strip club. Ms. Alba declined to go topless for the role, which made these one of the few scenes that stand out as not matching the comic book.
But even if she had been topless, the visual match would've still been missing. It's clear from Miller's drawings that he meant Callahan to be able to dance. Not merely "dance like a stripper" but to have the kind of stage presence that drew the eye and commanded attention.
Ms. Alba, by contrast, danced like a stripper. An attractive but ordinary stripper. I don't think this is the actress's fault: apparently Rodriguez wanted her to look "natural", so instead of choreographing her moves, Ms. Alba went to strip clubs to see how strippers danced, and patterned her act accordingly. I think this was a mistake on the director's part, personally. Someone could've at least taught her how to twirl a rope. :)
This was a hard movie for me to watch, especially the second half of "Yellow Bastard", the story that concludes the movie. Most of the characters in "Sin City" are anti-heroes that are hard to feel close sympathy for. The protagonists aren't the worst characters in the stories, by any means (the villains are really twisted people). But they're mostly a lot of brutal misfits that don't feel like they'd fit in even if they weren't pushed into such awful circumstances.
Nancy Callahan and Detective Hartigan, however, have always come across to me as basically good people stuck in a terrible situation and doing the best that they can. unlike Marv, who hacks through everyone is his path with a kind of blithe indifference, Hartigan is fairly restrained. He does sneak up on some cops and kill them, but let's face it: these are cops who are guarding a mass murderer and serial rapist who tortures little girls. They'd have to be working really hard to preserve their ignorance if they wanted to come off as "innocent". So I think of Hartigan as a good guy, and Callahan too. I want things to go well for them, and I know they're not. I knew what was going to happen to Hartigan after he saved little Nancy, and I didn't want to see it. I knew what was going to happen to him after he saved her the second time, and part of me was hoping they'd change the ending. I knew they wouldn't, and for story integrity, they couldn't. But I wanted them to.
"Yellow Bastard" is a powerful story, powerful enough that it's stuck with me for years after I read it. I've read Marv's story, too, and some of the Dwight/Miho stories. But I couldn't remember how Marv's or Dwight's went. With "Yellow Bastard", I could tell at a glance that it was a scene-for-scene exact reproduction of the comic. I remembered it that well. But I almost didn't want to see this movie just because I find it such a painful story. It's hard for me to recommend this movie whole-heartedly, simple because it's not something I really enjoyed seeing.
The film is eeriely authentic to the story arcs it's taken from the comic book. Not just in plot and dialogue, but in style, camera angle, and chosen shots. The filmmakers essentially used the comic book as a storyboard. It's an extraordinarily faithful adaptation. The technical achievement in doing that, alone, is impressive. (Here's a frame-by-frame comparison based on some of the trailers and early footage released, and that'll give you an idea of just how faithful it is. Also chock-full of spoilers, so I don't recommend it if you've neither seen the movie or the comic book. And NOT WORK SAFE.)
That said, it's a faithful adaptation of a sex-and-violence-laden, film-noir-style comic book. If you like movies like "Pulp Fiction", you should enjoy this film. (Lut suggests "Kill Bill" would be a better comparison, and that "Pulp Fiction" is less violent than "Sin City". I haven't seen "Kill Bill", myself.) But this is definitely not a film that everyone would enjoy. I have a reasonably high tolerance for violence, but some of the scenes made me nauseous; one of them even turned Lut's stomach a bit.
Some of the actors do a great job of capturing their characters. Mickey Rourke's Marv feels right, as does Bruce Willis's Hartigan. Jessica Alba didn't quite cut it for me as Nancy Callahan, though. In fact, even the little-girl Nancy didn't quite fit. Part of it was physical: young Nancy in the comic book is a skinny little kid with a narrow face and big eyes. In retrospect, probably no living child would quite look right. Maybe a girl who'd just gone through a growth spurt -- you know how kids can be, when they grow six inches in a year and don't gain any weight to compensate. Ms. Alba is fairly attractive, but she's on the thin side, while adult Nancy from the comic is more curvy.
Frank Miller also drew many loving panels of Nancy Callahan, who works as a stripper, dancing in a strip club. Ms. Alba declined to go topless for the role, which made these one of the few scenes that stand out as not matching the comic book.
But even if she had been topless, the visual match would've still been missing. It's clear from Miller's drawings that he meant Callahan to be able to dance. Not merely "dance like a stripper" but to have the kind of stage presence that drew the eye and commanded attention.
Ms. Alba, by contrast, danced like a stripper. An attractive but ordinary stripper. I don't think this is the actress's fault: apparently Rodriguez wanted her to look "natural", so instead of choreographing her moves, Ms. Alba went to strip clubs to see how strippers danced, and patterned her act accordingly. I think this was a mistake on the director's part, personally. Someone could've at least taught her how to twirl a rope. :)
This was a hard movie for me to watch, especially the second half of "Yellow Bastard", the story that concludes the movie. Most of the characters in "Sin City" are anti-heroes that are hard to feel close sympathy for. The protagonists aren't the worst characters in the stories, by any means (the villains are really twisted people). But they're mostly a lot of brutal misfits that don't feel like they'd fit in even if they weren't pushed into such awful circumstances.
Nancy Callahan and Detective Hartigan, however, have always come across to me as basically good people stuck in a terrible situation and doing the best that they can. unlike Marv, who hacks through everyone is his path with a kind of blithe indifference, Hartigan is fairly restrained. He does sneak up on some cops and kill them, but let's face it: these are cops who are guarding a mass murderer and serial rapist who tortures little girls. They'd have to be working really hard to preserve their ignorance if they wanted to come off as "innocent". So I think of Hartigan as a good guy, and Callahan too. I want things to go well for them, and I know they're not. I knew what was going to happen to Hartigan after he saved little Nancy, and I didn't want to see it. I knew what was going to happen to him after he saved her the second time, and part of me was hoping they'd change the ending. I knew they wouldn't, and for story integrity, they couldn't. But I wanted them to.
"Yellow Bastard" is a powerful story, powerful enough that it's stuck with me for years after I read it. I've read Marv's story, too, and some of the Dwight/Miho stories. But I couldn't remember how Marv's or Dwight's went. With "Yellow Bastard", I could tell at a glance that it was a scene-for-scene exact reproduction of the comic. I remembered it that well. But I almost didn't want to see this movie just because I find it such a painful story. It's hard for me to recommend this movie whole-heartedly, simple because it's not something I really enjoyed seeing.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 12:51 am (UTC)More violent than Pulp Fiction is something that is not to my taste. I'll pass. Thanks for the review!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:16 am (UTC)What does upset me -- and this is part of why I don't like horror movies -- is torture. Violence and gore for the sole purpose of hurting people. "Sin City" really has too much torture for my taste.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:23 am (UTC)I'm afraid I'm more sensitive on that side. I get squeamish about *any* level of torture. I've had friends try to get me to read an excellent story that had BDSM in it. I just couldn't read it.
Also, gore just upsets me. I don't think that the sight of blood significantly adds to a story. There have been times when I've drawn a character who's hurt and bleeding, and I find it very hard to do.
At one point, I chickened out so badly, a number of readers got confused, as I drew a dead body without blood. :(
Johann Maus's squeamishness isn't just something I pulled out of thin air. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:23 am (UTC)There were two pivital, critical scenes in "Redeeming Factors" that I had to do. No way around them and still have the impact the story (at those points) demanded, but they were grim, violent and graphic.
My cover artist, Eugene Arenhaus, had agreed to do 5 pen & ink full-page plates to be scattered throughout the novel, and one of the scenes wound up as one of the P&I plates.
He saved that one for last, and argued heroically NOT to do it---ANYTHING but that. He lost the argument. While the scene was "static" (the violence was over, and one of the main characters was simply reacting in total dispair and horror to it) Eugene said drawing it still gave him nightmares. He did a masterful job, but in retrospect I can appreciate his reluctance to illustrate it.
That plate is, IMHO, the most powerful illustration in the book. It's also the hardest to look at.
And while it was necessary, it was damned hard to write...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:26 am (UTC)When John Wayne pulls his six gun and shoots the badguy who collapses face down clutching his chest, I don't mind.
But when a more contemporary actor blasts the bad guy and blood goes all over the place before he collapses into a pool of blood, I don't think that the blood has significantly added value to the story.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:39 am (UTC)Sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it does. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. I think the scene in "Master and Commander" where the doctor has to do surgery on himself would be significantly less powerful if it all happened behind a screen. Showing the mechanics of what he does is gory, but it makes the scene more believable and accessible.
Blood and gore can add to the realism and impact that a scene has. Showing planes firebombing Dresden doesn't have remotely the same impact that showing people running and screaming while the firebombing goes on.
I'm not saying you ought to like gore or blood or whatever, I'm just saying that it's got its uses in a production. So does torture, for that matter, but I still don't like subjecting myself to movies that have it.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 04:09 am (UTC)My brother is a big fan of "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band Of Brothers", and while they might *perhaps* be more accurate versions of WWII Combat, I could not stand to watch it all the way through.
I guess my problem is that my sense of revulsion kicks in before other people's do, thus killing a potentially good movie for me... :(
I'll take the old 1950's version of "Captain Horatio Hornblower" with Gregory Peck over "Master and Commander" any day.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:29 am (UTC)-- Kagetsume
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:44 am (UTC)I mean, not that I felt sorry for the creep, but I kinda envied Wendy at that point. :(
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 02:04 pm (UTC)Interestingly enough, "That Yellow Bastard" is probably one of my least favorite "Sin City" stories. The end fits, but I don't really like how it got there. It just seemed... contrived. And the end is a bit too dark for me too, Rowan. I'm still a sucker for a happy ending.
On the flip side, "The Hard Goodbye," which is what I believe they've named the story with Marv (it was released as just "Sin City," before it essentially became Frank's Franchise,) is probably my favorite. Marv has a sort of a cheerful acceptence of his role in life, and I guess that's what makes it for me. He's not smart, he's not clever, but he has a persistence that's very attractive, and he's quite willing to accept the consequences of his actions.
All in all, though, while I like it, I'm going to have to say that "Sin City" is far from one of my favorite comics. I've read most of them, but I don't own any. Its neat, the art is good for the most part, but the violence is too pointless for me, and the plots get too contrived. Its very Frank Miller, if you've read a lot of his stuff, you'd know what I mean. When he's good, he's fun to read, but he lacks a certain depth, at least IMHO. I'll never think if his writing in the same way as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Scott McCloud, or Kurt Busiek...
Hey, speaking of Scott, Rowan, do you still have those issues of "Zot!" :) I've got to start looking for those. Maybe e-bay...