Sin City vs. Sin City

I saw Sin City on Sunday, and I have a few thoughts about it. I haven’t totally defined my opinion of it other than to say that it’s a bold new look for cinema. Audiences like it to the tune of $28M domestic box office this weekend.

I saw the movie at Silverlake’s Vista Theater on Sunset Blvd. Gorgeous one-screen palace that harkens back to the old time theaters of my youth (Boy I really sound old don’t I?). The motif of the theater was Egyptian and at any moment I expected to see Boris Karloff as The Mummy come out from behind the thick red velvet curtains. Everyone should see a movie in a venue like this. Classic Hollywood at its finest - Affordable too – only $5 for the movie.

I’ll get to the movie, but first let me talk about the Sin City graphic novels. This is important because the whole “gag” of this movie is the fact that it’s a translation of the graphic novels to the big screen. It’s not an adaptation.

And that’s a good thing and a bad thing.

The GN’s (graphic novels to you civilians) are thick books that Frank Miller has written and drawn taking place in his own film noir corner of the world. It’s a world of trenchcoats and truncheons, t-birds and topless women who’ll shoot your dick off if you cross them. Corruption at every turn. A city where there are no “good guys” just people trying to survive – in other words – Mickey Spillane’s living room. The books are distinctive in that they’re black and white with the occasional splash of red or other color for emphasis. They show Miller’s undying love for crime fiction and film noir.

They came on the heels of his cashing his checks from all the superhero fiction he’d been creating: Daredevil (Elektra), The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One and his sci-fi samurai love fest, Ronin. Miller broke off from tradition and struck out to create books, not just comic books. In the process he brought a distinctive perspective on crime fiction.

Okay, now about the movie, I have to say this – it’s just like the books. Exactly. Panel for frame, it’s exactly like the books. Same dialogue. Same design sense. Same voice-over. It’s a graphic novel onscreen.

But it ain’t a movie.

That’s what directors Rodriguez and Miller were going for and they succeeded, but in strictly putting panels onscreen you left out a lot of the things that give a film life. You’ve ignored the grammar of film in favor of the graphic novels’, and in this case the results aren’t one hundred percent positive.

Some of the dialogue is stilted and is meant to be read, not spoken. This is a problem.

Some of the camera angles and wide shots you wish were there to give the story its proper mood and setting – they aren’t there. This is a problem.

Some of the voice-over is overused. This is a problem.

One of the stories used – The Big Fat Kill – has a lot of backstory to it related to another of Miller’s novels. None of this is ever explained. A small problem, but yeah – a problem.

To be sure, there’s a lot that’s good here:

The actors for the most part fall into their roles, with the exception of Mickey Rourke who owns his. He pulled his character on like a second skin and went to town.

Carla Gugino almost made me forget that Jessica Alba was in the movie.

Almost.

Rosario Dawson ditto.

The black and white works really well and the color is properly used (for the most part – I had a problem with the color in the sequence where Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro are talking in the car. It was mis/overused).

Many of the angles and visual motifs have never been seen in a film before.

For all the above, good and bad, my hat’s off to Sin City.

Notice I didn’t say movie.