There's really no way it wasn't going to, at least as far as its potential went. I love the SIN CITY comics--they're pulpy and ridiculous and fantastic all at once. I feel the same way about Robert Rodriguez's DESPERADO. So you combine these two factors, coupled with Robert's increasing mastery over the potential of digital technology, and you bring in co-directors like SIN CITY's creator Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino, and it couldn't miss, right?

Oh, it so easily could have. Look at FOUR ROOMS, which was another movie featuring segments directed by Robert and Quentin. Or rather, don't look at it--anchored as it is by a Tim Roth-drawn character out of a French farce, the movie was one of the bigger disappointments I've had compared to the expectations I have for the folks involved.

But FOUR ROOMS doesn't even deserve to be listed on the same IMDb Web site as SIN CITY. This movie is so far above other movies of its kind, on par with the very best we've seen from either director, that there really aren't other movies of its kind. What could you compare SIN CITY to? SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, for its distinctive computer-generated environment? Not even close. If anything, SIN CITY feels like a movie I'd expect to see Mitchum in his prime appear in, as filted through the dynamic aesthetic of Japanese anime. It's like that in the same way it's nothing at all like that.

From the opening scene of SIN CITY, a balcony on a high-rise that stands taller than other buildings in the city, you know that the lights of the city are barely keeping the dark at bay. SIN CITY's the kind of place you'd never want to visit alone at night, but the only problem is, it's always night there.

The city, and its inhabitants, exist in a kind of hyper-reality, darker and more two-dimensional than the world we know, even as it's a place of blackened wonder, where good deeds not only don't go unpunished, they get dragged into the back alleys and get the shit beat out of them.

Josh Hartnett, always more effective when he's not speaking, bookends the movie, and serves as a first guide to let you know that this is a town of no happy endings, but it's not his movie. The movie belongs to Mickey Rourke as Marv, and Bruce Willis as Hartigan, a good cop with a bum ticker and a worse run of luck. Hartigan learns the hard way just how deeep the corruption in the city goes when he tries to save a kidnapped 11-year-old girl. He knows the odds are impossible, and he accepts that fact, and just does his job, come what may (and what comes is pretty terrible, although after you follow his arc to its resolution, you realize how much you'd prefer to be Hartigan than the Yellow Bastard on the receiving end of his wrath.

Marv, whose story appeared in the first SIN CITY comic (which has since been subtitled "The Hard Goodbye"), is the closest thing this town has to a superhero, although he's more force of nature than he is super. And he's hardly a hero--he just realizes that any woman who had the temerity to look fondly in his direction, and there's only ever been one, deserves to be avenged. And the guilty deserve to pay in as terrible a way as possible.

Marv in the comics is huge, a hulking thug carved from granite, someone who'd only ever exist in a place like Basin City. He's torn up, covered in band-aids and utterly unstoppable, at least until he's meted out justice.

Marv is the toughest guy in the movie, and also the funniest. Calling his dialogue "hard-boiled" doesn't do it justice. It's more like gravel shot through a scatter gun, and Rourke delivers it perfectly. Maybe the audience was just feeling every raw nerve come alive throughout this thing, but Marv's voice-over, and his love of nice coats, got bits of nervous laughter throughout, although no one laughed when he turned to his dirty business. Seeing Marv get taken apart by the mute cannibal Kevin, played with surprising effectiveness by Elijah Wood of all people, was a burst of pure adrenaline. It was David and Goliath, only David was a sociopath who preferred to get up close and personal, not use a sling. But if you know the comics, you know what happens to Kevin, and the MPAA didn't keep you from seeing every bit of that.

The violence in the movie is staggering, completely over-the-top, and yet completely appropriate. Not just because it, like every character and every scene throughout, mirrored the comics panels, but because a place like SIN CITY and its inhabitants can only be dealt with in such ways. I knew what was coming, and it was still surprising. But only in the same way as DESPERADO or KILL BILL, not in a way that should bother too many people. And in a movie where the characters are pretty much all thinly drawn caricatures, there's no reason the violence shouldn't match.

When Clive Owens's Dwight, he of the SIN CITY tales "The Big, Fat Kill" and "Family Values" shows up, the violence becomes more of an underlying menace. Dwight, who's beset by enough personal issues to make him fit in the city quite nicely even though he seems above it, runs with good company--the mostly undressed whores of SIN CITY. Yes, in this town, women aren't much more than objects, of desire or revenge, but they're also not victims, for the most part. Carla Gugino's cameo, bold and naked though she is, helps humanize Marv a bit, and Dwight's former lover Gail (Rosario Dawson), keeps him grounded while at the same time keeping him in line, mostly because she could kick his ass. And then there's her co-hort Miho (Devin Aoki). Tiny little Miho, who's about as deadly as Marv but quiet, almost invisible about it. She's also surrounded by maybe the most fully drawn female character in the movie, Becky, played by THE GILMORE GIRLS's Alexis Bledel. Becky is the only character who seems filled with questions and doubt, and watching Bledel play even the most "innocent" or the whores was as fun as seeing her TV mom play the skeevy bartender in BAD SANTA.

The movie's cast might threaten to overwhelm a lesser movie, but here, the cameos come fast and to great effect. Michael Clarke Duncan is the enforcer Manute; Brittany Murphy's barmaid was actually not annoying; Nick Stahl is a great, sleazy Yellow Bastard. Michael Madesen, Jaime King and Mary Shelton all do some great work. And then there was Jessica Alba's Nancy Callahan. She's the most prominent of the female roles, for the size of her part and also for the way she's used to sell the movie in trailers or in posters (and if given a choice to use Alba as she looks in this movie, I wouldn't pass that up, either). She doesn't seem to carry the gravitas or acting chops as most of the other cast, but that actually helps her Nancy Callahan character. Now grown up after being saved by Hartigan years before, she nevertheless seems more in need of saving as an adult than she ever did as a child. Although, like everything in Sin City, appearances are deceiving.

About SIN CITY, writer Harlan Ellison said "...it is...tougher and meaner than a Drano milkshake." And while it seemed impossible in these overly P.C. times that Rodriguez would be able to deliver a movie that lived up to that, he did. And at the same time, he advanced the craft of digital filmmaking and comic book movie adaptations. The movie really is above and beyond anything I've seen since the first KILL BILL, which provided that same adrenaline shot, and outside of that movie, gives me a feeling I rarely get from movies. Feelings that personal visions can actually lead to uncompromised and excellent movies. Nice to have that feeling back again, even if the characters in this movie don't have half the depth of "The Bride" herself. While this movie won't replace PULP FICTION or either KILL BILL on my list of favorite movies, it sits nicely enough alongside those flicks.

Incidentally, for a look at the SIN CITY comics themselves, and all the artwork you can handle, check out Comics 101 this Wednesday. And for another take on the prospect of turning Miller's comics to a movie, also check out From Print to Screen on Thursday.

Next Week: Kevin Smith's West Coast Vulgarthon

/chris

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