Well, leave it to me to be the voice of dissension. Not that I think it’s a bad movie or poorly-made (it’s neither), but it was a very frustrating one.
The best analogy I could think of is when you go to a Translation Engine, and pop in an English phrase into, say, German. Then you take the German phrase it gave you, and pop that back in verbatim, back into English. The result is a broken version of what you originally inputted–maybe getting the general gist right, but losing some of the syntax and meaning in the process.
I’m only slightly familiar with Miller’s work, but it’s very clear that he takes a cinematic approach to a static format. His style is to effectively translate noir cinematic conventions into a new medium, and it works. But that’s because graphic novels aren’t movies, and vice versa. From all accounts, RR was quite literalist in translating every graphic novel frame into its cinematic equivalent, and I found this slavish devotion exhausting and, to be honest, boring.
John Alton was the greatest noir cinematographer the movies have ever known. But if you watch a film like The Big Combo or Raw Deal or He Walked By Night, you’ll note that while every shot is expertly photographed, not every shot is "noir"ish, nor is every shot stunningly gorgeous or quirkily angular. To do so is to subjugate the story, and fundamentally, noirs should be about the story and the tone–accentuated by the visuals, not overwhelmed by then.
RR clearly does not understand this, or maybe he just doesn’t care, but there’s something oppressive about every shot being stunning and striking and modish. This is equally true with “beautiful” cinematography, where every shot is sun-dappled and picturesque and lovely (see Elvira Madigan or Heaven’s Gate). In both instances, the movies become less about the characters and the story and more about the look. Sure it’s cool and hip and different, but it also bleaches the film of any meaning or emotion.
A good point of comparison is the recent Sky Captain, which was made by similar methods. And while there’s no question that the acting was better in Sin City and the stories were more original, I had fun (in an admittedly shallow way) in Sky Captain because it felt like the visuals (no matter how whiz-bang they were) were still in service of the story, while I always felt the exact opposite with the RR film. And I’m a much bigger aficianado of noirs than Buck Rogers-style adventures, so I had more I could relate to in this film.
But I didn’t care about anyone, no matter how well-acted the characters were (though there are some unfortunate exceptions, coughMichael Madsencough). This was because I was constantly being pulled out of the movie, so rigorous it was in trying to impress me. Well, the film had many moments that impressed me, but even more that I was overwhelmingly indifferent to. Many more.
Another translation problem is the dialogue. Things that read well on the page can sound stupid or self-conscious when spoken out loud, and in Sin City, there was a high percentage of eye-rolling, faux-hardboiled, tough guy talk that also kept pulling me out of the film–not as much as I was afraid of, but enough, again, to be an ever-present irritant. This is how people remember the noirs sounding like, but it’s not how most of them really did. I’m not the first person to be reminded of Guy Noir by Garrison Keillor, but his patter is for paradic effect, whereas we were supposed to be taking this completely straight (or worse, as a meta-wink to the audience. Ugh!)
I think the most interesting exception is the scene that QT directed. If you note that one scene, the color scheme is more interesting than in the rest of the film–fluid and hallucinatory and, I’m betting, not so literalist as the between-the-lines color we see everywhere else. I’m also betting QT made this scene his own, and didn’t defer to Miller the way the rest of the film does. I think Pulp Fiction is probably the most overrated movie in the last quarter-century, but QT takes pulp stories and noir conventions, and then takes complete ownership of them, deferring to no one. And while it’s nowhere as gorgeous nor as striking as Sin City (though it’s got a similar story construction), it’s a much better film.
That being said, there were quite a few memorable or clever moments, and some inspired casting. And the stories were fun, although they didn’t resonate with me beyond the cineplex parking lot (heck, I rented Cellular over the weekend, and that taut, underrated economical thriller stuck with me more). And Carla Gugino is a stone-cold hottie (which has been obvious since at least her appearance in what continues to be RR’s best film, the inspired Spy Kids).
I was quite looking forward to this and really wished it had been better. Rodriguez is a genuinely talented guy, so I hope this was just an itch he had to scratch, and he applies his talent to a more interesting, less showy project–we’ll see how Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D is, later this year…