 | | Jessica Alba headlines the mammoth list of hardbodies in this flick |
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You guys know how much I love Kevin Smith, so it's with some pleasure that I tracked down
this hour long radio interview he recently conducted with Sin City dual directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. Any fan of movies and comic books will find it a rather fascinating ramble, covering such topics as Hollywood, digital filmmaking and the surprising ease with which they adapted the Sin City comics to the screen.
Personally I saw Sin City recently and was blown away. It didn't fully hit me what an amazing piece of work this is at first, however the stark and striking images etched themselves firmly into my brain, so much so that over the course of the following week I couldn't get it out of my head. It now dawns on me just what a fantastic and memorable flick this sucker is.
The film uses a gritty, hyper-stylised look that literally feels like the graphic novels come to life. If you were to freeze it on any single frame you'd be left with what are essentially comic book panels. The contrasting black and white world, the occasional flicks of colour, the exaggerated look - they all culminate in the most hauntingly beautiful film I've seen in quite some time.
Leaving the visuals aside, the flick itself is about as clichéd as they come, yet it works. It's the ultimate film noir, with the usual assortment of 2D characters you'd expect; the aging cop, the damsel in distress, the suave hitman, and the er, cannibalistic ninja? Okay...perhaps you could say it adds its own spin on the genre too.
Story-wise the various plot strands interweave and hop around in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Pulp Fiction. My favourite of which was the tale of Marv; a psychopath with a heart, who awakens one night to find a dead hooker laying next to him in bed.
The film just wreaks of cool. The cast are shit hot, with particularly brilliant turns from Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen and Elijah Wood. Bruce Willis is possibly miscast as a 60+ year old, but honestly you'd be hard pushed to fault his performance either. Furthermore, it's about as violent a film as you'll see this year, with decapitations, lost limbs, and even its fair share of castrations.
Shamelessly angry and misogynistic, I wouldn't recommend Sin City to anyone over the age of 40, but it is solid proof, if ever I saw it, of the potential in digital cinema. Like it or not, film is on its way out and blue-screen movie making is here to stay. When it's used in such an adventurous and visually captivating manner as this though, it's hard to complain.
The first true comic book adaptation.
This review/report was created by the great team at TPSreport.co.uk:
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