Sin City

If nothing else Sin City proves that some films are simply unique enough to allow themselves to be paused at any given moment and it's clear what the director is trying to achieve. While this black and white world occasionally breaks out for flashes of colour, the whole thing has an amazing look to it and truly seems like someone managed to make a graphic novel come alive in front of your eyes. The visual aspect was the first thing everyone seemed interested in when talking about the movie but there's no way I'd have sat through all this if the characters were less than compelling (though they do tend to jump around quite a lot from story to story). In particular Marv, played by none other than Mickey Rourke. He seems to be my favourite character in the entire film. He does terrible things to people but there's a weird sort of likeability to his actions that comes from understanding his motivation. Elijah Wood does an interesting job here, but he didn't have to do much. Maybe that's part of the reason this movie works as well. There's something about Elijah Wood playing dead cool while everyone around him is going nuts that makes things creepier for me. I wouldn't say there's a lot of subtlety to this film, though. Everything is completely over the top but it comes across amazingly. Dialogue sounds like it's from a comic book noir which it very much is. No one speaks normally, the violence is ridiculous, the makeup is exaggerated, yet it all comes together because the film absolutely commits to its own ideas 100% of the time. I've always thought too much style could be irritating but I don't get that feeling when watching Sin City. The story is compelling, and the art style is a masterpiece. It really brought the comic book alive. For me this might just be the best movie adaptation of a comic thats been done so far.