Sin City

Allow me to cast a "nay" vote on Sin City. I wasn't transported, I wasn't entertained, and I wasn't convinced. I actually considered walking out, but we were watching it at the Alamo Drafthouse and you can't really walk out before they bring your check.

By the way, allow me to plug the Alamo here: they had the musician who plays "Zorro Girl" (Dallas?) giving a freebie performance at the opening. A nice touch, though her music kept drifting in the door during the picture's first hour.

I was pretty upbeat going into this picture; Peter Jackson's turn at LOTR had me convinced that material that defies conversion into film really just needs the right director to handle it. If that's the case and Sin City could be turned into a convincing film, then Miller, Tarantino, and Rodriguez just weren't the guys to do it. And if not them, then who?

Maybe it was a case of my imagination being too good. Maybe there aren't any actors who could have delivered those lines like they sound in my head. Or maybe we've just passed the point where modern actors can say those lines without them sounding like lines. At any rate, it's not that the film didn't look great and didn't have a lot of style, but without the few surprises offered by Miller's hard-boiled stories (having read the comics, I knew what was coming), there just wasn't anything to hold my interest. This picture literally didn't show me anything I hadn't seen before, and done better -- either fifty years ago in the original noir pictures, or in the pages of Miller's original novels.

Let me also quickly mention that those with weak stomachs should probably apply elsewhere for entertainment; few of Miller's trademark graphic depictions of mortal wounds are excised. As amusing as it is to see Benicio Del Toro with something sticking out of his head, the rest of it may well make you lose your lunch.