first sin city test screening review

[AmericanDragon 0]

copied and pasted from chud

 

Just got back from an advanced screening.

 

 

An absolute fucking mess.

 

Before you all ask...yes, I've read all three of the graphic novels covered here...plus the other Dwight story, A Dame to Kill For (which I think is a helluva lot better than The Big Fat Kill, personally). I like the graphic novels...some more than others (they never got better than the original Sin City...which I guess I should call The Hard Goodbye now) but they all had their goofy noir charm and striking images. Miller's writing can sometimes get quite overcooked (espeshilly the narrative sections). But in graphic novel form, the words and images sit together well as an enjoyable if somewhat empty dark consistancy.

 

SPOILERS BELOW. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

 

 

STILL SPOILERS, SPOILER BOY!

 

 

I DON'T WANT TO GET YELLED AT, SO I'M WARNING YOU AGAIN!

 

Okay, now....

 

The movie starts well enough. The Josh Hartnet "story" is predictable, but serves as a fine introduction to what I thought would be a series of grim and gritty neo-noir pulp stories. It shouldn't have been a bookend though. I'll get to that later.

 

First story up. THAT YELLOW BASTARD. No title to indicate it, just Willis driving in a horribly computer generated car giving us the standard "cop about to retire" diatribe. I was confused...because I'd heard that this story was the last....

 

Well, there's a reason for that. After Hartigan gets shot by Bob and put in a coma, we cut away from his story and straight into...

 

THE HARD GOODBYE. This was jarring. I thought that Rodriguez was going to be running each main story simultaneously and cutting back and forth from each. Which would have been a confusing disaster. But now, we stick with Marv through the duration of his story (and get a nice little shout out to Dwight in his DAME TO KILL FOR story....even though he has the same face...) Overall this sequence goes very well. Rourke is terriffic and perfectly cast as Marv, easily the most intresting character in all of Miller's tales. He has fun with the part and Rodriguez has fun with the segment. Problems? Yeah, the whole thing feels EXTREMELY rushed. It's as if Rodriguez had a whip he was cracking while filming, saying "Come ON, we've got two other stories to cram in here!" I mean...when Lucile shows Marv her eaten hand she has that horrible shriek...and then seconds later asks for a cigarette. Rodriguez doesn't even give them time for FADEOUT! The whole things written off as a joke, and what could have been a creepy scene (certainly the scariest in all the graphic novels) becomes stupid and frustrating.

 

Still, this is easily the best segment. Rutger Hauer is great and hits all the right notes in his one scene. Elijah Wood smells like stunt casting, but he still makes for a pretty good villain...and Miller and Rodriguez don't change a thing about his character...or his messy finale...

 

But Rourke is the reason to see this segment. He really shines. There's one shot that'll probably really divide you guys, but I happend to laugh at it hard. It involves Rourke hamming it up in a car. You'll know it when you see it. Plus, the humor and tone is right in this section...and it matches his character.

 

Next up, THE BIG FAT KILL. Easily the worst of the bunch. Del Toro gives a mostly amusing performance, but he's never threatening...so we never get a sense of what the big deal is. Plus, Dwight is such a BORING character in this one. We don't have a sense of what's motivating him, or why he's doing anything for anyone. It's like Miller was still in Daredevil or Batman mode when writing this story...and just moved their hero qualities to Dwight for no reason. He's doing the right thing because it's the right thing. I take a lot of fault here with the original story, which I never particularly cared for. But the direction is equally unsinspired and flat. And the TARANTINO section? Hate to tell you, but it's even worse. QT seems bored. He comes up with a gag to try to add humor to the scene, but what could have been a taut, suspensful or creepy bit just comes off as an Excorcist parody! I'm not kidding! Doesn't work at all. I don't even like any of the shots here, or the black and white...it offers the least arresting visuals in all three stories (although the stark black and white of Dwight in the tar pits was nice). Michael Clarke Duncan is hysterical, though. Not in a good way. He just enters as a big bad baddie, but we have no idea what's motivating him, who his new "master" is, or why he has any connection to Dwight and Gail (no refrence to A DAME TO KILL FOR is given). The effect is that Manute comes across as another threatless villain who spends way too much time running off monologues about what will happen to Sin City (and Old Town)....while we're sitting in the audience wondering why we should care.

 

We go back to THE HARD GOODBYE at the end, after Hartigan's woken up from his coma. Willis and Alba are good in this section. Nick Stahl hams it up, but Jr. really does look silly all the way through this. Never really menacing at all. I think they coulda toned down the yellow JUST a tad. It's too bad, because some of the movies most intresting shots are here...but it just doesn't add up to much. Hartigan was never really that intresting of a character to begin with (and really, his arc is way too similiar to Marv's)...but since everyone is crunched for time...more intresting things are taken OUT of the story. We don't get to see Hartigan eventually crack and decide to confess to raping Nancy, or his wife come and visit him telling him he's getting a divorce. We don't see him broken or humiliated. We see him literally BEATEN....we see them all beaten. But it's as if that sole purprose is to make them out to be a tough guy.

 

And honestly, that's all Rodriguez seems intrested in. Making things look cool. Making the good guys tough and the bad guys over the top scary. And it just...doesn't...work. The visuals are too clean and spare. The violence totally cartoony. Anything that could possibly be taken seriously is shoved away in favor of a joke. Some of the performances work because the actors find the right way to create a stylized performance. I don't really blame the cast here at all....a couple of sour spots aside (I don't think Rosario Dawson gets it....).

 

It's as if Rodriguez was thinking that this was his Pulp Fiction. It's got everything that the Tarantino accusers often get confused about. Style over substance. Refrences without imagination. Homage without thought or subtext. Remember all that talk about ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO being Rodriguez's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY? Remember how...off that seemd when you were finished watching the overstuffed, overdirected underwitten movie? I don't think it's a coincidence that this movie stries to have a similar structure (complete with that RIDICULOUS and utterrly TACKED ON wrap around story) as the Tarantino masterpiece. Nor is it surprising that they're selling this with Tarantino's name. This reminds me of the days after the Tarantino breakthough, when anything he was associated with highlighted his ugly mug and name with bright fucking neon.

 

And for all the credit Rodriguez gets for making good movies quickly...here's one project he should have taken his time with. And he rushes right through it. Not only should he have focused on one story (Marv's, naturally) and taken his time....he should have used his imagination a little more in translating his text into something that would have been better suited for cinema. Yeah, it looks like the graphic novels. But there are reasons that you go see movies, and there are reasons that you read graphic novels. The overall impression was not that I was watching a literal transition of a comic book movie and that it was exciting. I was mostly just....bored.

 

Sorry to rain on your parade, guys. I know a lot of you were looking forward to it (I was too). Also, this post is WAY too long. But I think my dissapointment has built up a bit of something I wanted to let lose. Feel free to ask some questions, if you'd like.

[Vyce 0]

Still gonna see it.

 

Still probably going to love it.

[AmericanDragon 0]

second review, copied and pasted from aicn

 

L.D.K.A. takes in SIN CITY and is reduced to a sticky geeky amorphous throbbing mass of well pleasured flesh!

Hey folks, Harry here... I'm dying to see this film. Dying. All my doubts are officially gone. First off - I got a review - the type of reviews I despise that are literal step by step, shot for shot - that just spoils everything. I've chosen not to post it after talking with Moriarty & Quint - as there are going to be tons of reviews coming in on this movie - and they'll be all over the net. It sounds like Rodriguez and Miller nailed this one with railroad spikes. Beyond this - I've heard from a couple of folks that have seen it, as has Moriarty and the people we know... say it kicks unholy ass. Rodriguez? He's so happy with it that he's compulsively watching it over and over and over, unlike any film he's ever made, cuz he's so happy with it. Before I get to the main review - here's the opening of that spoiler review I was talking about - just so you can see how excited this comics professional (aka Killgore) got about the film:

 

I’m going to try to get through this without resorting to hyperbole or exaggeration and without resorting to comparing it to its source material. That said, Sin City is a remarkable film, burning high contrast images on the backs of your retinas (if I stare at a blank white surface, Marv jumps out at me, though I’d rather it be Alba), and the hard boiled Chandleresque characters are permanently burnt into the back of my skull. This is not an adaptation. Rodriguez has translated verbatim Frank Miller’s graphic novel into a bombastic, hyper-stylized, modern art movie. Miller’s comic has not only served as a basis for the film, but the panels themselves have transcended the page and are emblazed on the silver screen. And is it ever silver.

 

The titular city is a corrupt, hedonistic city that exists somewhere between the Chicago of Scarface and the sensational (first person that uses the adjective sin-sational to describe it gets his nuts ripped off) universe of Kill Bill. The Bride could easily hack her way through these tittie bars and brothels. The seedy characters here drive 1930’s era Studebakers and speak in film noir lingo.

Ok - and now for the star attraction... A warning though... this review may in fact create such a fanatical lusting for this film that you will be rendered utterly useless till April 1st - and for the subsequent weeks after you too have been made drooly by this flick. Here ya go...

 

harry, you haven't used any of my previous early reviews, but maybe now you might, if only because now the early review in question is for SIN CITY.

 

a little background--i'm a college student in boston, and my girlfriend got us tickets to a 2:30 PM sneak preview screening of SIN CITY at the Loews down the street; what's even cooler is the theater brought in a digital projector to show it. i don't know how she got 'em, i don't wanna know, but after seeing this film, i'm cool with whatever method of persuasion my little vixen of a gal used to score two tickets.

 

because this movie rocks.

 

hard.

 

you really have no idea. the previews rock, but the movie is so much more than any of them, with or without the music by the servants (the music in the movie is fine, but john debney, rodriguez, and graeme revell did it, not the servants). and best of all, i got to see it early. you all now have to sweat it out until April 1. well, maybe not you, harry, if only because you and rodriguez are tight. but hey, it sucks for me too, because the only thing i wanna do now is see SIN CITY again.

 

for those of you who don't know the plot, here's a brief summary:

 

story 1: the hard goodbye. initally called just sin city, the hard goodbye follows marv on his quest for vengeance after goldie, the one good thing in his life, is murdered next to him.

 

story 2: the big fat kill. this story follows dwight, a murderer with a new face, as he teams up with the prostitutes of Old Town to deal with the potentially fatal repercussions of killing dirty cop Jack Rafferty.

 

story 3: that yellow bastard. hardigan, the only decent cop in Sin City, squares off against Senator Roark as well as Roark's vicious, child molesting son Junior in an attempt to protect young Nancy Callahan.

 

additionally, these three stories are bookended with some short scenes dealing with Josh Hartnett's hitman character. the first one a lot of you have seen, i'm sure, when the comicon footage premiered online months ago, but the last one is new and a great way to end the movie.

 

this movie is almost a fuckin' masterpiece. even though i'm still jazzed by the whole experience, i can safely say it's the most visceral movie experience i've had in a long while, as well as maybe my new favorite comic book movie of all time (beating out superman 1 and 2, X2, and spiderman 2). i've only a few minor qualms, which i'll get to in a second, but they keep the movie at a 9, maybe only 9 and a half, than the perfect 10 it could be.

 

as much as i love what michael mann did with his high-def camera on collateral, rodriguez tops him on SIN CITY. harry, remember when you worried that the HD wouldn't look as good as film stock shot bu guillermo navarro? well, don't panic. the HD is positively lush, with great, rich blacks, greys, and whites. this looks like the bastard son of all the great '40s noir films ever made. and i mean that in the best way possible, i mean it as a compliment.

 

not only does rodriguez top mann, he also tops kerry conran and his digital work on sky captain. all the sets in this movie are CGI'ed in as well, but they feel real. the characters interact with them, rather than around them (my biggest sky captain qualm). best yet, this movie just feels like rodriguez simply filmed miller's comics. in a way, that's the best thing i could say about this movie. visually, it IS the comics, with the white characters on black backgrounds being particularily striking (josh hartnett and marley shelton kissing, or clive owen sinking to his doom in tar). i've always been a fan of rodriguez's directing style, but here, it truly seems like he gave the camera to frank miller and said "you know this world, you direct it." and miller hit a homerun. i know, going into the movie, i was jazzed about QT's guest contribution and picking it out, but i got so enrapped in the movie that i forgot all about it. no scene screams "tarantino" or "rodriguez," but it all screams "miller." great work, frank.

 

and what a work it is. it looks great, sounds great, and is ably supported by a great team of actors. the standouts, for me, are mickey rourke as marv and bruce willis as hartigan. frank miller proclaimed that "rourke is Marv," and he's dead on in his assessment. but more than simply being faithful to the look and sound of marv (which, admittedly, any big guy could do a serviceable job), rourke captures the man's soul. and it's wounded, man. we feel his pain in the loss of goldie, his worries that he might be losing his sanity, and all his primal anger. but, under it all, rourke makes us see the essential good in marv. in a way, it's almost like rourke's harry angel; a hard, scarred, tough as nails SOB, but with a good soul nothing (and i mean NOTHING) can touch. rourke is back with a vengeance, and his performance should garner more acclaim than it probably will. and willis, for the first time since Unbreakable, seems really alive in his work. he's magnetic, restrained rather than bored, and so intense in his pursuit of justice (so much so that what he does, like much in this movie, might make you squeam) that you can take your eyes of him. he's weary, broken-down, and almost dead, but he knows what's right and will stop at nothing to do so. following his beyond-phoned it in work in Hostage, Willis's hartigan is one of his best roles ever, and hopefully he will start taking on more challenging roles. do not worry, any of you naysayers, because he is better than clint eastwood could have ever been.

 

but really no one in the cast is a slacker. clive owen's american accent is a little dodgy, but he captures dwight's righteous fury like a pro and is aces reading miller's hard-boiled voice overs. james king and carla gugino are badass as well, and are extremely hot and naked in this movie (especially gugino---damn!!! this gal needs to do us all a favor and pose for playboy because she is a goddess). devon aoki is the darth maul of this movie, and her swordwork might steal away the movie from everybody else if the rest of the movie wasn't so good. michael clarke duncan always fares best in bad guy roles, and scores here as well. rosario dawson is obviously having a blast as gail, relishing the chance to kill lots of people, dress like the hottest bondage girl you've ever seen, and make out with clive owen (in a non-sex scene that was as hot as any full nudity sexual romp i've ever seen). she seems happy to be having fun rather than languishing in Alexander.

 

josh hartnett--an underrated favorite of mine, and a blast in his small bad guy role. what's more, i totally geeked out at the presences of powers boothe (as senator roark) and rutger hauer (as cardinal roark). put these guys in more movies---especially hauer, who's magentic in his three minutes of screentime. plus, elijah wood, benicio del toro, and nick stahl are three of the sleaziest villians i've ever seen in the movies. del toro has the least screentime of the three, but his work is reminisent of young brando. really creepy, over-the-top, and loving every minute of it. the fact that he gives his all in a small role like this and blows a leading role in The Hunted really shows the faith he had in this project. between this and Bully, stahl is cornering the market on playing twisted young men, and it's a tribute to his skill that Junior is just as hideous before his "change" as he is after (although he's much much much more attractive before). and wood? i'm gonna say the least about him and leave it as a surprise for you to discover. all i'll say is that frodo baggins is dead, with this one performance, and wood IS simply terrifying and disturbing as kevin. hell, people in the audience were so unnerrved by him that they gasped EVERY TIME he came on screen.

 

before i get to the negatives, lemme assure you of two things.

 

1) the narration in the comics is still in the movie. i would say that probably 80% of it was kept, and it is terrific. owen, willis, and rourke all do a great job with it, and it enhances, rather than detracts from, the film. great stuff.

 

2) this movie is violent as hell. you have no idea unless you've read the comics, and even then you'll probably be surprised at how much rodriguez and miller have gotten away with. sure, they use some tricks like making blood yellow or white instead of red (at times; other times it's red as ever), but it's still one of the most graphically violent films i've ever seen. there are no clean wounds or slick violence in this film; it's all ragged and bloody and spurting and unclean and downright mean looking. the two grisly piece-de-resistances? hartigan's final confrontation with junior and marv's "little chat" with kevin. gore hounds are gonna cream themselves.

 

now the negatives. michael madsen is kinda wasted. after his work in Kill Bill, which is better than his Mr. Blonde, his work as Bob (hartigan's partner) is disappointing. sure, he has less to work with, but he just seems listless and bored (especially when acting alongside Willis). additionally, jessica alba's choice to keep her clothes on hurts the film rather than helps it. i'll admit, she's fine (acting-wise) as nancy, a lot better than i had thought and probably the best she's ever been in a movie, but when the rest of the female cast is so willing to be either naked or semi-nude (as is bruce willis), her refusal to do so stands out.

 

still, this is a movie to see, again and again, on its release date on april 1st. provided the MPAA doesn't cut it to shreds (and it might; the version we saw was unrated), this is the most faithful adaptation of a comic ever made. god bless frank miller, god bless robert rodriguez, and god bless the entire cast for getting behind this film.

[bob_barron 0]

What's Tarantino's role with the movie?

[2GOLD 0]

Harry Knowles about blowing a load into a cup after every positive review...just another day at AICN.

[AmericanDragon 0]

He directed the part where Benicio and Clive have a conversation in a car.

[Guest El Satanico]

He directs a driving scene. He did it to return a favor to RR and was paid $1 and a pot of chile.

[Guest El Satanico]

Harry Knowles about blowing a load into a cup after every positive review...just another day at AICN.

That wasn't a review from him.

[Vyce 0]

Harry Knowles about blowing a load into a cup after every positive review...just another day at AICN.

That website is utterly useless.

[AmericanDragon 0]

I'm glad they cut out Marv scaling brick wall with his bare hands.

[MDH257 0]

I got to see an advance screening of Sin City last week.

There are three Sin City threads, but this one has the most replies so far, so I'm posting this here.

 

Just to note, I've never read the comic books.

 

I thought the movie was a real trip and full of adrenaline. The black & white suits the film. I thought all the computer generated city effects worked because the violence is so over the top that it has to be taken as a big bloody comic book come to life and not as a new kind of film noir as some have called it.

 

Of the three segments, I actually thought the first one was the best with Mickey Rourke giving the performance of the movie. It enough to make you wonder how his carrer would have gone if he hadn't messed it up.

 

Clive Owen is the star of the second segment and I thought he held his own. I hope he dosen't play James Bond because I think that would be a step down for his career.

 

Bruce's segment comes last. Jessica Alba is great to look at and all, but I think they could have found someone better. Though the weak performences in this movie stand out (Britney Murphy in particular), they aren't around long enough to drag it down. I was actually suprised that Jamie King gave a good perfornance since I always considered her just a pretty face, while Murphy (whom I thought was a better actress) comes across very wooden.

 

I thought it was great I think the guys on the board will have a good time seeing it.

 

BTW, the previews seem to get people expecting a lot of nudity. So if your wondering. There are a couple of seconds from Jamie King, but the only name actress who really gets naked is Carla Cugino.

[AmericanDragon 0]

Here's a repost of the links from the other threads.

 

Comic Con Footage

http://atomixcable.staghosting.com/trailer...con_footage.mov

 

more reviews

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19683

 

Moriarty's review

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19697

 

downloadable 11 min featurette

http://s46.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=20VH0AO...1D2DKAYBMAS1ADJ

[NoCalMike 0]

I visit Aint It Cool News daily, but I avoid any and all of HARRY's reviews, because I can only take so much of him telling me that each new movie he sees is fully of "sugary movie magic that will make you melt like butter in your seat and ask for seconds" It is total 100% shilling, and it is pathetic. It is hard to take Harry's reviews seriously now that he gets paid to do it, and sometimes get's cameos in movies, like the TCM remake, and The Faculty, (although I did enjoy The Faculty).

[Guest El Satanico]

The review from AICN posted in this thread isn't from Harry, he's just doing the intro to it. It's just hard to tell with the entire article in plain type.