Gripping!
Inventive!
Dazzlingly
original!
A
masterpiece of screenwriting genius!
I
imagine these were just some of the things that “Special Guest Director” Quentin
Tarantino was hoping would be said or written to describe his adaptation of
Frank Miller’s graphic novel(s) Sin
City.
You’re in for a loooooong wait there, Quentin. And by
the way, you owe me an hour and 24 minutes of my life back, you no-talent
hack.
To
be honest, I’d never really thought I would watch Sin City, but when a friend
started badgering me about it and telling me how awesome it was, I thought
“Well, why not”?
I’m
glad I didn’t pay to see this in the theater.
This movie is so packed with cliché cinematography techniques, gimmicky visual
effects and overblown plot conveniences that it actually makes the medium on
which it was based (graphic novels A.K.A. “comic books” to the unschooled) seem
like the evening news. But maybe that was the point—to bring comics-style art to
the big screen in a way that makes the viewer question… well, I don’t know.
Maybe it makes them question whether or not it’s too late to get their money
back.
Let
me put it to you another way—Frank Miller writes one helluva graphic novel/comic book. The problem is that once
you try to put it on the big screen, with live action actors going through the
motions, and you try to turn that writing into dialogue… Well, let’s just say
that the dialogue in this movie makes Frank Miller seem like a high-school
sophomore who is desperately trying to be as cool as Raymond Chandler and Tim
Burton at the same time. Everything is so overdone and ludicrous that it is just
corny. George
Lucas could write better
dialogue than this—that’s how corny and wooden
the dialogue in this movie is.
And as far as the direction is
concerned…
(sigh)
Would someone please tell Quentin Tarantino that cramming a movie with Big Names
and Hott Chixx does not make
it good. All the Hotties and
Big Starz in the world could not have saved this
oinker. Yeah, maybe this is a form of modern art, but that doesn’t make it good modern art. Art, however, is
subject to interpretation, and there are a lot of people who just RAVED about
how good this movie was. A lot of people just LOVED this movie. So be it. There
are a lot of movies out there that people love in spite of the fact that they
KNOW that the movie is crap. I, for
example still love the movie TRON. I
don’t know why. I just do. It’s crap-- I know that. But
I still like it. The same thing goes for the movie Popeye, with Robin Williams. Silly, frivolous garbage. But I liked it. I really
did.
I think
People who want to love this movie will love it regardless of what I, or anyone
else says or thinks. But if you want my honest opinion about
Check it out for yourself and then make up your own mind. I’m just here to warn
you—this movie gets very close to being as bad a Hudson Hawk in a number of
places.
The
fact that Tarantino directed it should have been my first
warning.
Blecccch.
I can't believe I did
this. I didn't actually tell you what the movie was about.
Whoops!
Another story involves a thug named Marv who is set up
for the murder of a beautiful woman with whom he'd spent one glorious night
of passion, but barely knew. He vows to avenge her murder and goes on a kind of
wierd rampage.
Then there's the story of the guy shagging the waitress who's being hassled by
the dirty cop. The guy winds up in league with a tribe of ultra-glamorous
super-sexy impossibly-well-dressed vigilante hookers. One of them is a Ninja!
Another one is Rory Gilmore! Pardon me while I shake my head in amazement that
this oinker of a movie was approved by any studio.
And
there are a few othe bits and pieces that don't really
merit description. Did I mention that Frodo Baggins is a cannibal who moves
like Spider-man and has a pet wolf in this
movie?
Now... all of these stories are somehow interconnected and woven together in
much the same way that Victor Hugo did in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Alexandre Dumas did with the Count of Monte Cristo. It's all pretty contrived. I found myself wishing
I'd already seen the movie before so I could
fast-forward through the dull parts. But that's just it-- it's kind of all one
big dull part.
I'm
willing to bet that this movie winds up having The
Spaceballs Effect on a lot of people.
The
Spaceballs Effect (TSE)-- in case you don't already know-- is when you
see a movie the first time and you really enjoy it. Then, a few years later, you
see the same movie and wonder what in the hell you was so enjoyable about the
piece of crap in question.