Ladies and gentlemen, this is movie that in all honesty is hard to explain but, back then twenty years ago was one of those movies that I was excited to see. Obviously, the film is directed by Robert Rodriguez, most infamous for children’s films Spy Kids, Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Though loved his earlier movies like Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and when I heard about Sin City, I was of course excited because it has a great list of actors in this one action movie set in a comic book world. And in all fairness, this film introduced me to the world of graphic novels and comics by great Frank Miller.
The movie Sin City is based on the Graphic Novels by Frank Miller set in an almost Film Noir or Neo Noir world where in an entire city is one corrupt city and the police department is so corrupt it's like living in New York City. The film center's around in aging cop (Bruce Willis), and ex-convict (Mickey Rourke) and a P.I. (Clive Owen).
For many good reasons as to why I was excited to see this movie because, it was directed by Robert Rodriguez, a man at the time I was looking for inspirations back in high school because I was inspired by the fact that he made a movie for 7,000 dollars almost like Christopher Nolan making Following for six grand. Moreover out of all of the directors I look up to the most its most certainly Robert Rodriguez mainly because if you want to talk about making movies and finding ways to get your film put out moreover get noticed, he's most certainly the man you want to have a conversation with because when he always talks on the DVD or Blu-Ray commentary it's always fascinating as well as some of his bonus features that he does as well. Twenty years ago, I will admit watching this for the first time I didn't know what I was expecting, especially from the over-the-top action sequences as well as Mickey Rourke getting run over a couple of times, as well as the infamous Bruce Willis yanking a guy’s junk out, LITERALLY yanking a guy’s manhood. And at the time twenty years ago it all seemed funny and one of these things that you never ever expected hell, something even I never ever in a million years expected to see. And watching this in the theater for the first time all you can do is laugh so hard because at times they were literally funny to see for the first time. And then, when I first realized that all of Frank Miller's graphic novels and you read through the pages, you slowly realize "OOOOOOOOH, I see what they were going", and basically when your adapting a comic book series or superhero character, you basically want to stay truthful to the characters or transition a famous comic book like Watchmen, you want to see a full transition to the whole movie, basically creating a real life feel to the movie. And sure, at times comic book fans can always be a pain in the a** about not staying truthful but with this movie they literally transition each pages of Miller's book series and they're all in this movie granted some scenes they had to tone down but if you watch this movie and then read the book, you slowly understand what Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller were making. Granted after watching this film I slowly became obsessed with Frank Miller's work and mostly bought all of his work and now that I have all of his collection of Sin City I can go back and read all of them but now when watching the film again, at times it does feel comical and hilarious but then at times I do feel like I would rather read the books, for many reasons when you get older reliving movies that you use to love back in high school moreover thought they were the greatest things you've ever seen. But when you watch this at the age of 38 years of ages the logic becomes more involved than your teenage brain can, furthermore I think the cartoonish ideas become okay but at times not that great, and sure there are some great moments in the movie but again you slowly began to realize that the books are much better than the movie. I mean this movie does have a great list of actors and they help you feel for the characters especially Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis characters and since this was Frank Miller's whole love and tribute to the film noir or neo noir movies he loved growing up, and strangely enough this was my first introduction to that particular genre, because at my young age I never understood why these protagonists always fall in the end or take the blame and the bad guys always get away with it so, to the films credit this was no doubt my first introduction to the world of film noir and neo noir films. You can obviously tell this movie is a fantasy when you see hookers that look like a ten out of ten and are walking around half naked carrying guns, although this was coming from Frank Miller's world because long before he turned his series into a movie, basically after putting up with Marvel and DC comics, he decided that he wanted to make a comic book where he loved drawing the most and that was tough guys in trench coats, beautiful babes carrying guns as well as drawing cars from the 1940's and 50's, and with this film you can slowly have a sense of humor in seeing all the women are ten out of ten, when in real life most hookers look like 2.5 out of 10. So, in all fairness this film is a hundred percent fantasy. I will admit some of Frank Miller's early works from Daredevil to Sin City, those are his best works but his works after Sin City it does look off as well as so, bizarre because when at I heard that he was making a comic book adaption to The Spirit by Will Eisner it look so, bad moreover was a bad ripoff to Sin City where he did nothing but transition a character to a PG-13 world of Sin City, and yet you slowly realize through the years that he has this bizarre obsession with Nazism for which, I don't know why he has that throughout his book and I really don't want to know because the more I know the more I'm never going to forgive myself. I admit that this was a good watch from start to finish and had some good moments and great performances from Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and even Benicio del Toro as well as Powers Boothe and the late great Rutger Hauer. If you love stylized action movies this movie would most certainly be for you although I would highly recommend reading the books first before you watch this movie and more importantly you can forget the sequel because that movie was trying to be a faithful sequel but sadly it loses it's flair from the original film but look bottom line Sin City is a way better movie than its successor, moreover you never really needed a sequel to this film, because in all honesty this film doesn't even need a sequel so, you can just re-watch this movie and feel closure once the credits role for good reasons they all have endings that makes more sense than the sequel. Also, the sequel is just okay-ish but once you see it, you really need to through that movie into the closet of forgetfulness. But if you want to dive into Rodriguez’s filmography, I will highly recommend the El Mariachi trilogy from the first El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico as well as, Sin City and Alita: Battle Angel. That’s if you truly want to watch more of Robert Rodriguez’s films although those films are the only films I would recommend watching while the other films you can simply skip and forget they exist.
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