Is it just me, or is Sin City not a fantastic movie? It feels like nobody remembers this movie. I watched it again last night, and I was astonished by how great it was. Yet there’s almost no love for it. I jumped on line to read stuff after it was over, and was shocked to discover that it didn’t get much attention. Great cast, total commitment to the style, and yet…no devotion.
It just had the rotten luck of being filmed in the wrong century. It’d be right at home on some ancient drive-in. They woulda tossed it fans like Nancy back then.
Probably because the movie itself was sort of just a pastiche or homage to a style. It wasn’t “original” enough, I suppose, to be considered a true classic. It was fairly derivative. However, it was masterfully executed and I absolutely loved it. I own it on DVD and it’s among my favorite recent movies.
It was pretty, but the story wasn’t great, it was hard to tell what anyone was saying (as I recall it), and the violent bits lacked any sort of entertainment color (horror/action/exploitation/etc.). It was like watching a documentary without a moral.
Outside of the visuals, there just wasn’t anything “classic” about it.
That right there makes it a classic. Unfortunately, the super heavy noir style wears on me after a while and I can’t make it through the whole thing in one sitting. Great in small doses though.
I never read any of the comic books… er, graphic novels. I did see the movie, and I mostly enjoyed it.
But a “classic”? Nah. Visually stunning, well acted, but… just not a plausible world. Are we supposed to just acccept that the entire world is a corrupt, dirty, crime-ridden city ruled by one rich family?
I can appreciate the noir approach up to a point, but the movie can never figure out whether it’s supposed to be a gritty, realistic portrayal of a city or a pure fantasy. It doesn’t quite work as either. Are we supposed to accept that Basin City is a pure Hell? There are no clean, safe neighborhoods anywhere? No nice families? No pleasant suburbs? EVERY woman is a hooker or a stripper?
It gets old.
The weakest link in the whole movie was The Big Fat Kill.. Prostitutes go to war? Really?
Visually it was pretty impressive, but the slavish devotion to the comic’s dialogue did not translate to spoken word well at all for me, and made it a slog to sit through.
Well yeah, if you can’t have both. But Jessica Alba not being naked when she plays a stripper in a movie where even the psychiatrist got naked is the biggest offender of gratuitous non nudity i can think off. Movie was good, not sure about “classic” though.
The OP confused me because everyone I know was creaming over Sin City when it came out. Personally, I liked it, but I feel like the more you exaggerate and use “homages”, the easier it becomes to make a film you can persuade people to rave about. So, to some extent, I reflexively pushed back against it a little. I didn’t think it was as great as it thought it was.