bookmark_borderSin City

Movie info from IMDB
Movie reviews from Metacritic

There’s only one thing that annoys me in the cinema more than a bad movie – and aside from inconsiderate people – it’s a mediocre movie that could have been a great movie. In saying that, even typing that sentence has me wondering if that’s true of Sin City.

In case you don’t know, it’s based on a series of “graphic novels” by Frank Miller, and the movie is shot largely in black and white to reflect that. Visually the effect is stunning, with only a few colours allowed on screen you find yourself noticing details you may not have noticed before.

Unfortunately one of the things you notice is how stilted the dialogue is, sounding as it does like something from a 50s gangster movie, and a badly written one at that. The story is told through three characters, and is pieced together in a Pulp Fiction style – and I’ll pause and mention that the section directed by Quentin Tarantino is noticeably the best in the movie.

Mickey Rourke is the standout of the actors on display, Clive Owen does a reasonable job and we see “Mike” from 24 punching someone!! The rest of the cast, Willis included, are silted and just don’t seem to have done any homework on the film noir/Phillip Marlow style feel the movie seemed to be aiming at.

I’m loathed to call this a bad movie, and it certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it is different, obviously so as it progresses, to the usual Hollywood fare and for that I applaud it. If you break this movie down into separate parts then you can easily find examples of where it’s been done better, but on the whole …

No, it’s no good I just can’t make up my mind. This is not a bad movie, it could have been a great movie, but it’s not. I’ll leave it at that.