Sin City

Sin City is a very difficult movie to describe. After having seen it, I find it difficult to determine exactly what the creators where attempting to make. The movie did some really interesting things with backgrounds, perspective, black and white with "hand colouring", etc. But in the end, I came away wondering "Why?" What was the point of this movie. Was it an action flick? No, it didn't pull that off. Comedy? No, definitely not. Drama? Maybe just a little, but it wasn't deep enough to be a drama. It wasn't a period piece - nothing seem to fit into any particular period. It was surreal and all over the place.

I really like the black and white with hand colouring. It was really effective without letting a very over the top violent movie get too gruesome (it was pretty gruesome as it was.) I don't think that I liked the super-surreal strange computer graphics everywhere. It wasn't an accident, the effect was intentional but I don't think that I liked it. I am not much of a fan of comic books and it was very much a comic book come to life effect. There was way too much gratuitous nudity, sex, blood, gore, violence, etc. I realize that the theme of the movie was "Sin City" but that leads most people to think of Las Vegas (which IS sin city) not just a commentary on corruption in a surreal world.

Am I trying to say that the movie was bad? No. It was, cautiously good. It falls into that "I am glad that I watched it but am really glad that I didn't end up buying it" category. This movie is definitely not a classic. It didn't break any ground. Nothing in it was extrordinary. It wasn't even all that interesting to watch. It had a lot of good people in it all doing very good jobs. The directing was good but not great. Effects left a lot to be desired but it will probably do well in the effect award categories since it is so cheesy.

Bottom line: It is a mediocre adult film.