"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything," a pivotal character says early in Sin City, the film adaptation of writer/artist Frank Miller's groundbreaking graphic novel series. Over the course of the film's two-hour running time, we get it all: mutilations and castrations, cannibalism and pedophilia, stabbings, beatings, shootings, whippings and more. By the film's end, Sin City has become something of an encyclopedia of violence.
Then again, violence is the nature of this particular cinematic beast. Co-directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez (who, oddly enough, helmed the maudlin Spy Kids series), Sin City at its most impressive is a veritable re-creation of Miller's black and white comic panels populated by thugs, hookers, mobsters and police officers. Instead of opting for a loose adaptation of Miller's dirty epic, the directors attempt to lift the comic off its page and transplant it onto the screen. In three-dimensions, the "town without pity" takes on a startling reality, becoming a noir-ish labyrinth scattered with gleaming skyscrapers, seedy bars and looping back roads.
Visually, Sin City is an impressive picture. The stark yet somehow elevated dichromatic cinematography (punctuated with bright colors) is worth the price of admission alone. Also impressive is how faithful particular scenes are to their parent graphic novel panels; if there's an award for most faithful marriage between comic and film, Sin City undoubtedly takes it.
The narrative, on the other hand, doesn't survive the transition as well. Sin City is a triptych based on three story arcs in the graphic novel series. The first of these involves a hulking mass of menace named Marv (impressively portrayed by Mickey Rourke) and his hunt along rooftops and alleys for the killer of a golden-curled prostitute who showed him a night of tenderness. It's a merciless, near-nihilistic quest, to say the least, and it's the perfect tale to introduce us to the sadistic humor of Miller's underworld.
The middle story, the weakest of the three, is an over-the-top vignette about smooth operator Dwight (Clive Owen) and his dealings with a group of thugs led by a heavily made-up Benicio del Toro. Dwight's adventure hinges ona decapitated head that threatens to destroy the delicate truce between Basin City's police force and the gun-totting prostitutes of Old Town. The hallmark of this tale: the silent assassin Miho whose swords, arrows and swastika throwing-stars deal plenty of bloody damage.
The final chapter concludes with another lonely man trying to save another idealized woman. This time, it's Bruce Willis as a retired cop trying to save an innocent stripper played by Jessica Alba from the clutches of a yellow bastard -- literally.
These extreme characters and situations, to say nothing of the hardboiled voiceovers that dominate much of the story, lose some of their believability on the screen. For those who know and appreciate Frank Miller's graphic world, there's something lost in translation from page to screen. The numerous noir and crime references, the one-dimensional characters, the near-constant violence -- all of it seems more permissible within the graphic novel medium. Bringing these stories and characters to the big screen and imbuing them with motion and voice isn't a wholly pleasant experience for die-hard comic purists. Impossible as it seems, Sin City proves that a completely faithful movie can be just as frustrating as the loosest adaptation.
The film we're left with isn't worthless, but too often, Sin City -- in the same vein as last year's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow -- feels like an experiment, not a film. At best, it's an entertaining opening act for summer blockbusters; at worst, it's just another adaptive defeat.
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