The Wages of 'Sin'

The 'comic book adaptation' genre is about one 'Daredevil 2' away from carving out a permanent place for itself between the 'inspirational retard' genre and the 'Jean Claude Van Damme Memorial underground street fighter' genre in the Hall of Worthless Cinema. The last decade or so has seen a ton of films based on comics, and most of them (with the exception of the first 'Batman', 'The Crow', 'Men in Black' and the 'X-men' films) have been steaming piles of shit.

They all pretty much have the same general plot - complex hero flirts with annoying love interest while trying to defeat a colorful villain and come to terms with his superhuman ability to fly/pick up a building/release toxic ass gas. The good ones have either created their own dark, visually fascinating world ('The Crow') or figured out that they can't take themselves too seriously and just had fun with the idea ('Hellboy', 'Batman'). The bad ones ('The Hulk', 'Daredevil') act as though they're exploring the deeper meaning of spandex tights.

But until 'Sin City', no comic book movie has been created that actually simulates what's fun about reading a comic book. It's not about depth or character development - it's about consistent action, sharp, one-liner heavy dialogue and atmosphere with a capital 'A'. People read comic books for the immediate escapism they provide. 'Sin City' isn't an adaptation; it's a living, breathing comic book.

The film, set in a hellish urban jungle called Basin City, starts out rather inauspicously, trotting out 'King of the Ass Hats' Josh Hartnett to unconvincingly play a dapper hit man. He may be a 'hottie', but the guy's acting is about as emotionally intense as a text message. It's a mercifully brief scene, and the film quickly gets down to business with the first vignette, featuring Bruce Willis as a tough, graying cop out to stop a deviant child murderer, also the Senator's son, from killing a young girl. The violent tone is set early, as Willis' Detective Hartigan blasts off body parts like he's taking out the garbage. He rescues the girl and sacrifices himself to keep her alive ("An old man dies. A little girl lives. That's a pretty fair trade.") The scene ends, for the moment, with Willis being pumped full of lead by his traitorious partner (Michael Madsen). But in Basin City, no one really dies until they're ready to.

The next epsiode is the film's best, a gritty story about a depraved yet charismatic killer (a surprisingly appealing Mickey Rourke) named Marv who's out to avenge the murder of a gorgeous call girl named Goldie (a damn fine looking Jaime King), killed while lying next to him in bed. He's a sadistic, unhinged sociopath - but it's impossible not to root for him as he shoots, dismembers and disfigures his way to the truth. Also, his probation officer (Carla Gugino) is extremely hot and really likes being naked.

It's a ton of fun watching Marv romp through the underworld, meting out excessive justice and living by his own twisted moral guidelines (eg. you can't kill someone unless they deserve it, but if they do, you're free to turn them into Robert Shaw at the end of 'Jaws'). By the time he catches up with Goldie's killer, the audience is unabashedly rooting for the coming torture. It doesn't hurt that the killer is played by the eminently tortureable Elijah Wood.

The violence hardly lets up in the third vignette, which features Clive Owen as (what else?) a murderer. Owen's Dwight is dating Shellie (Brittany Murphy), a barmaid with plenty of baggage. When some of that baggage turns up, in the form of a menacing ex-boyfriend named Jack (Benicio Del Toro), Dwight chivalrously takes care of it by adminstering a violent swirlie to Jack in a recently used toilet bowl. This sets into motion a chain of events that leads Dwight into Old Town, a district ruled by heavily armed and implausibly gorgeous hookers, led by S&M diva Gail (Rosario Dawson), who enforce their own laws. Dwight, who has a soft spot for the ladies (especially Gail) and cannot tolerate men who abuse them, joins up with the women of Old Town to avert a bloody war between the cops, the mob and the hookers.

The film then picks back up with Detective Hartigan, now recuperating in the hospital. He's being rehabilitated courtesy of Senator Rourke, a corrupt politician hell-bent on avenging his son's disfigurement by Hartigan. Once he's healed sufficiently, Hartigan is thrown in jail, framed for molesting Nancy, the girl he rescued. While in prison, he's kept going by the weekly letters he receives Nancy, who after eight years has grown up into a full-blown hottie who looks a lot like Jessica Alba.

When the letters stop coming, Hartigan fears that something has happened to Nancy. So he.......hell, its just more of the same ol' wonderful ultraviolence. Only this time the recipient is a creepy, foul-smelling creature named Yellow Bastard. Yes, 'Sin City' has its moments of David Lynchian absurdity in addition to straightforward carnage.

'Sin City' is chock full of cameos by big name actors, which is usually an extremely annoying and distracting cinematic convention. But with the exception of Hartnett, most everyone holds their own and avoids falling into the trap of "look at me" grandstanding.

Willis' best days are definitely behind him - buying him in a John McClane-type role is getting increasingly difficult, especially after the Lindsey Lohan rumors and the fact that he hasn't broken Ashton Kutcher's legs yet. But he pulls it off here, believably playing a burned out cop with a kind heart and doing a reasonably convincing job of pretending he doesn't want a piece of Jessica Alba.

Owen is great as the detached killer, Dwight. He was born to play this type of role; the Cockney accent adds to the stonefaced mystique. And Del Toro is perfect as a vile cop who's as miserable in death as he was in life. The guy plays scary way too well (see "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas") not to be a creep in real life. Or maybe he's just that good of an actor.

Rourke is the film's biggest winner, both because he probably needed it more than any of the other actors and because he simply nails the role. Playing a scuzzball, he clearly drew upon his real life experience of actually being a scuzzball to bring an extra bit of believability to the part. Regardless, his performance is the best thing in 'Sin City' (except for Carla Gugino's rack).

It's tough to know what to make of 'Sin City'. It's a movie, but it's like nothing I've seen before. It will be inadequately compared to 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', which was the first film to be shot entirely in front of a blue screen, as 'Sin City' was. But while 'Sky Captain' was an insufferably boring, pseudo-artsy homage to old 1930's and 40's sci-fi movies, 'Sin City' captures the seamy urban underworld of detective novels and crime serials with maximum grit and flair. It may have been created largely in the graphics lab, but it feels very vibrant and alive.

There's no deeper meaning to 'Sin City', except that it leaves you to ponder why watching a man get dragged by his face from a moving car is so damn amusing. 'Sin City' sets out to provide a specific, disposable brand of ultraviolent, ultra-visceral entertainment, and it succeeds marvelously. When a man ripping off another man's genitals with his bare hands gets the theater laughing uproariously, you know you're watching a good flick.

I give it 3.5 angry monkeys out of 4.