Sin City (OMG SPOILERZ)

So I saw Sin City yesterday thanks to some free passes to a preview screening.

The movie is... unique I guess. It's easily the most "comic book-ish" movie I've ever seen, thanks to the style.

Visual Effects: If you didn't know already, all the sets are 100% digital. Most of the time it's cohesive, but on occasion the difference between the actors and their surroundings is quite distinct, which kinda pulls you out of the movie. None of the effects seem all that super-flashy, which is good I guess since there's plenty of them (a lot of the blood is white, for instance). I didn't find the CGI too distracting.

Acting: Mostly good, although I thought Hardigan's (Bruce Willis) partner was awful. A lot of the dialogue in the movie is 100% stereotypical noir stuff, which was probably intentional. Get used to hearing a lot of it too, since in virtually the entire movie somebody is speaking thanks to the constant narration by the characters.

Story: It moves at about a mile-a-minute, so there's definitely not any slow parts. There's no problems understanding what's going on at any given time. Some of the plot twists are totally unbelievable, but it fits the comic book graphic novel theme.

Overall: I'm not entirely sure if I really liked it. The violence seems very over the top at times, and at some times unnecessarily gruesome. It felt kind of out-of-place to see people get hit by cars 4 times in a row, jump out of buildings, get thrown around by explosions, and take multiple flesh wounds with no ill effects, yet in the next scene people are being hacked apart and devoured by a wolf.

I didn't think there was ever much tension, since whenever a character gets in trouble everybody around them is usually dead 30 seconds later. If you judge it on style alone, it's a huge success - in the future, this movie will probably be found in the "Cult Classic" section of video rental stores, sitting next to Naked Lunch or Natural Born Killers or something.

I'd say it's a good movie, even though I'm not ecstatic about it.

I've seen [url='http://www.omelete.com.br/imagens/cinema/news/sin_city/poster_clive.jpg']this poster[/url] last time I went to the theater and I thought it was a Max Payne movie at first. I've been thinking of going to see it, maybe next week.

unnecessarily gruesome

There is no such thing!

deathbringer said:

There is no such thing!

I figured I would get some comments like this. I'm sorry, but showing somebody being manually castrated does not add anything to the movie. There was a bunch of violent scenes put in just for the sake of coolness with no redeeming values what so ever.

Anyone here read the comics? From that I've seen from the previews, it looks toned down slightly... or at least, it seems to have cut the nudity (that might just be because they are previews). I'd like some feed back from people who've read the comics.

david_a said:

I figured I would get some comments like this. I'm sorry, but showing somebody being manually castrated does not add anything to the movie.

Well, to see anyhthing but a bunch of yellow shredded rubber, let alone an intact penis, you need to be pretty fixated on that particular scene. And it does add someting to the movie, it's called drama. Maybe you missed the emotional state of the character at that moment.

There was a bunch of violent scenes put in just for the sake of coolness with no redeeming values what so ever.

Violence? Uh, no shit? Redeeming value? It's a violent movie, it's how it's portrayed.

i liked the movie a lot. a couple of the digital sets seemed too digital, but that's hardly worth complaining about.

i think it is a mistake to believe that violence in film needs to be 'redeemed' by some other element.

Captain Red said:

Anyone here read the comics? From that I've seen from the previews, it looks toned down slightly... or at least, it seems to have cut the nudity (that might just be because they are previews). I'd like some feed back from people who've read the comics.

No. The movie is almost verbatim from the comics. There are several scenes cut out but, they are minor and were not integral. Aside from Jessica Alba's character, Nancy, the nudity is still there. The violence is deffinately all there including one of my favorite panels from the book, made more hilarious by the transition from still to live action, where Marv is driving in a car holding a man's face to the pavement.

I read the comics a while back and if you enjoyed them, the film does not disappoint. If the dialogue seems strange at times, you have to blame the novel and not the film since it is almost word for word trascribed from the pages.

If for no other reason that to see the beautiful digital Basin City and splashes of colour thrown beautifully, I would reccommend seeing the film. I do think there's alot more to be had seeing this film besides just visuals.

Scuba Steve said:

where Marv is driving in a car holding a man's face to the pavement.

Yeah that scene was hilarious. Everyone also got a good laugh when the nazi guy gets hit by an arrow in the back and says something like "yeesh".

I loved the movie for the most part. The best story (and also funniest) is Marv IMO.

Saw it last night. For some reason, Marv reminded me alot of the Doom comicbook guy.

He's not nearly as hyper as the psycho DOOM comic guy. :)

Scuba Steve said:

There are several scenes cut out but, they are minor and were not integral.

Two scenes I really liked in the books were from Marv's story when he goes back to his mom's apartment to get his gun, and when Hartigan is in his hospital bed and his wife comes in and asks him if everything he was accused of was true, but he can't tell her. Those were two really emotional scenes, and I wish they had left them in... maybe on the DVD.

Also the only other scene I remember being cut offhand was when Hartigan pulls the spark plugs from the car... but that wasn't an overly important scene.

Other nudity they cut out was male nudity... Dwight, Hartigan and Yellow Bastard were all naked at points, but they were clothed or obscured in the movie. I'm not complaining about that though, just making note of it :P

Everything else was shot for shot, word for word in the books though, it was totally nuts. I don't know if this is how you do a comic book movie right (because there have been others I have enjoyed a lot as well that weren't as direct a translation as this), but it's certainly the best way to make a movie from these comic books. Good stuff, and very cool looking as well.

I loved the movie. I found Yellow Bastard though may have been better. Marv they had down to a science.

,

This was easily the best movie I've in the three days of this month, and yeah, probably all year too. I'll likely be buying the DVD.

Yay, I saw this movie today with a friend. Very awesome, though a bit gorey. My favorite character was Kevin, who was just creepy as hell and fucking nuts. Quite a transition from Frodo to that guy. :P Marv was also awesome, and I liked his storyline the best which kinda made the last two storylines more tedious for me (though I was glad when the Yellow Bastard was finaly killed). THe scenes where Jackie's corpse were talking were pretty awesome, and I cracked up when his decapitated head tried to start moving around. Also, the part where that guy got arrowed was awesome. Yeah, very cool movie. Loved the art style, narration, soundtrack, and general feeling of the movie. Violence was a bit too much, but oh well. Actualy, it was pretty toned down by the fact that most of the blood was white (or yellow hehe) which made it more surreal than gorey. I wonder which part Tarentino directed.

Anyway, I need to read the damn comic now. I guess I'll add it to my list along with Hellboy and all of Alan Moore's stuff (besides Watchmen).

,

deathbringer said:

There is no such thing!

I agree! The sicker the better!

Psyonisis said:

Heh, for some reason I thought that was the scene.

Violence doesn't have a redeeming quality in real life.

It does in movies and games though, which is A-OK in my book.

One of the best movies I've seen in quite a while. I hate movies that are whored out with digital effects, but it didn't bother me at all in this case. I totally loved the whole dark, gritty, film noir aspect of it. Nobody ever really wins in film noir, as it's supposed to be a dark reflection of human nature.

The violence was overtop, and even extremely humorous at times. The usage of color was very effective at underlining the meaning of certain spects of particular characters. The movie was 2 hours, but it felt like 3. There was never one slow, boring, shitty, sucky part.

What could possibly be better than a scene full of hot hookers with guns shooting the shit out of mobsters?

I must be the only person on the planet who is sick of comic book movies.

david_a said:

I must be the only person on the planet who is sick of comic book movies.

It's nice to see one that's actually very well done and faithful to the book though...

I liked the Harrigan (SP) storyline the best. Love the justice, and the repetition (An old man dies, a young woman lives). Sad though : (

Loved the violence. I don't see why people were bitching about the nudity, there wasn't very much.

Scabbed Angel said:

It's nice to see one that's actually very well done and faithful to the book though...

Hammered right on the head of the nail.

Scabbed Angel said:

Violence doesn't have a redeeming quality in real life.

The merciless can't be negotiated with.

I havent read the comic, probably because I'm not a big fan of comics but this movie was awesome.

Although I wasn't to fond of the way that one guy was superhuman. But that one was the best one! =D