Sin City

Kevin Drum has two reviews for the movie. Did they see the same flick?

Personally, it was a fine way to burn two plus hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Visually, pretty nifty. Didn't know blacks could be so black or whites so white. The audience? Well, let's just say that not too many in the seats were on a date. And it seemed to me that I was the only one who thought the few funny bits were funny. Lots of applause in the end, though. I assumed that those applauding were fans of the comic books and found the movie to be extremely faithful to them. And that was probably the problem for me. The movie was okay, for what it was, but in the end, it felt too long. I think Manohla Dargis had it right in her review.

I bring up E.C. because "Sin City" has been made with such scrupulous care and obvious love for its genre influences that it's a shame the movie is kind of a bore. In recent years, Mr. Rodriguez has been a careless craftsman, but he went to great lengths to honor Mr. Miller's vision, even quitting the Directors Guild because it wouldn't allow the two men to share the directing credit. But in an effort to make a faithful adaptation, Mr. Rodriguez put his own movie sense on hold, not even bothering with a real script. He didn't just try to make his "Sin City" look like a graphic novel: he tried to replicate the private experience of reading one too, slowly turned page after slowly turned page. The problem is, this is his private experience, not ours.

The music was pretty good. Mickey Rourke was excellent. Jessica Alba was boring. Even in chaps.