Plot: What’s it about?
When Robert Rodriguez sets his mind to something, odds are that it will happen. Rodriguez is sometimes known as Quentin Tarantino’s partner in crime, working with him on more than one occasion (“Desperado” and “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn” come to mind). One thing that has really impressed me about Mr. Rodriguez is his diversity in the movies he chooses to direct and his adoption of the High Definition format for making movies. Quite simply, he shoots what footage he needs and then he and the rest of his “Troublemaker Studios” lackeys go to work and make the movie in his basement (there’s a great featurette on this on the “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” DVD). It’s no secret that “Sin City” has been trying to come to the big screen for some time now and it was finally Rodriguez that landed the deal and brought his own style to the film, yet he managed to retain the darkness of the story that was so faithful to Frank Miller’s outstanding graphic novels. As a comic book reader (as a kid), I was always partial to the more mainstream titles like “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” – now it seems that every other movie is based on a comic book hero of sorts. I found myself, though, looking forward to seeing “Sin City”. Here’s what I found.
The movie is essentially three stories in one, all of them loosely interwoven with a few overlapping characters. “Sin City”, “The Big Fat Kill” and “That Yellow Bastard” are the three stories that are covered here. In the first installment we meet Marv (Mickey Rourke), a large and brooding man who has the love of his life, Goldie (Jamie King), murdered while she’s asleep. The story is one of revenge and nothing more, but we get inside Marv’s head and experience the actions with him – even ultimately taking his side. Next up is the story of a ex-photographer (Clive Owen) who mistakenly kills a cop and scrambles to cover it up. Amazing that the power in this installment was held by prostitutes who had an unmentioned thing going with the police in Sin City. This was the slowest of the three segments and probably the one that could benefit from a bit more character development. Lastly we meet Hartigan (Bruce Willis), imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. He corresponds with a Nancy (who later grows up to become the character played by Jessica Alba), someone who he grows to have deep feelings for.
Ok, on the surface – that’s it. The thing about “Sin City” is that there’s so much below the surface and a repeated viewing isn’t only recommended, it’s almost required. I can see a “Director’s Cut” of this coming our way in the future (more on that later), and this could certainly benefit from it. The movie already has a cult following and is ranked in the Internet Movie Database’s Top 100 movies of all-time. Is it worthy? Well, time usually does the best job of telling that tale. I will say that it’s refreshing to see something like this that is pushing the limits of filmmaking and not all movies based off comic books have to be corny and emotionless. “Sin City” contains a great cast of pretty high-profile actors, though not all are immediately recognizable. What do we need? A longer cut of this movie and I’m sure a sequel is in the works. Fans of Rodriguez will be right at home here for this very accurate adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels.
Video: How does it look?
It’s hard to assign a score to a movie where the characters have yellow skin and the blood is neon white in color – but…I must! The 1.85:1 transfer is enhanced for widescreen TV’s and the result is nothing short of spectacular. I couldn’t find any evidence of anything even resembling an error and even if there was something wrong, it would be hard to pinpoint. The movie is black and white (and yellow), which traditionally looks good on screen to begin with. “Sin City” looks outstanding on DVD and you’d be hard pressed to find anything out there that looks as unique as this does, for sure.
Audio: How does it sound?
A DTS soundtrack has been added to this version which sounds a bit better than the standard Dolby Digital 5.1. That said, the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is quite ample, at some points shaking the room with all its might! Ok, maybe not…Still, this soundtrack has some pretty high points and not too many low ones. The bass guitar that occupies the majority of the score sounds great and suffice it to say there are more than a few gunshots that will keep the surrounds busy. Dialogue is clear and clean – there’s little left to say except that this sounds nearly as good as it looks.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Hopefully everyone out there heeded my advice and just rented “Sin City” when it came out in September. For those of you that did, you have been rewarded with a two-disc special edition that is well worth the money you’ll spend for it. That said, there’s a lot of content on this release so let’s get started. On the first disc we have twenty minutes of footage added back into the movie whereas the previous version had just the theatrical cut. A little more backstory is added and gives us some new perception on the major characters. The movie has also now been separated into four stories, whreas the original was only three. Also included are two commentary tracks with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller and the other with Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Each of these is well worth the listen and they cover completely different topics. Tarantino and buddy Rodriguez are somewhat chummy on the track whereas Miller’s goes to the origins of the story. Some other features are on the first disc including “How it Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to Make ‘Sin City’” which is pretty self-explanatory, we meet Miller (a legend in the comic book universe) and his interactions with Rodriguez and the 3 minute opening sequence test shoot which ultimately convinced Miller to sign onto the project. “A Hard Top with a Diesel Engine” is a look at the one-of-a-kind cars used for the movie and “Trench Coats and Fishnets” takes a look at the costumes used in the film. One of the more interesting features is “Sin-Chroni-City” which is an audio and video timeline of how and where things went down. You can select scenes from the film and listen to Miller’s commentary as he tells you how and where things happened in the story. Some theatrical trailers are also included on the first disc.
This brings us to the second disc which contains even more extras. Those familiar with Rodriguez’s “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” will undoubtedly remember the “10 Minute Cooking School” and this time around he teaches us how to make breakfast tacos. He makes it sound/look easy, but I had neither the time nor the inclination to even give it a try. There’s a 15 minute film school in which Rodriguez takes us through the process of making the movie (all done on green screen) and this shows the importance of editing in the movies. Again, he’s so good at it that I had a hard time following along. Or maybe this stuff just doesn’t make sense to me. There’s a feature on make-up “Making the Monsters” which is pretty self-explanatory and a feature on Quentin Tarantino who directed one segment of the film “The Big Fat Kill”. Perhaps one of the more interesting features on this disc is that you can watch the film without any special effects. Yep, that’s right you can watch the actors in costume with the green screen in the background. An interesting way to watch the movie and it shows you what the magic of the movies is really like. There’s a concert with Bruce Willis and his band “A Night at Antones” as well as the collectible “Sin City” graphic novel. If you do own the single disc version, then you’ll never watch it again as this has so much more material a purchase is a necessity. I just wish they could have released this version the first time around, but hey…Hollywood needs to make more money, right?
