A film with style and substance
A really enjoyed Sin City. It falls just short of a perfect score for me, but only a sliver short. The only flaw is the overuse of gratuitous gore. Had a few of the splatter scenes been done off camera, the film would be on my all time favourites list. I suppose directors all too often forget Hitchcock's lesson on how effective chocolate syrup can be. I have a hunch that this is all the result of including Tarentino as a "guest director". I never liked Tarentino's films, precisely because the guy has no understanding of how to convey violence with any subtlety.
Aside from heavy use of blood and dismemberment, everything else in the film works fantastically. The style is original and unique. The recreation of the black and white with splashes of colours was risky. And, as we learned from films like A Scanner Darkly, it isn't enough to be different; a film that explores a new style has to pull it off amazingly well. Miller and Rogriguez recreated the comic's feel brilliantly. It was a daring experiment, and it worked very, very well.
And the acting was fantastic too. I've read a few reviews that complain of character-acting that is too flat, too two-dimensional. Well, comic books are on a printed page, they are two-dimensional. But it's not that the characters are flat, they're archetypal. Classic comic book characters are not about the depth of personality, but the breadth of symbolism and interpretation. Miller understands that and created and directed characters of that qualities. The actors were talented and smart enough to portray the characters in this non-standard way. Unlike other comic book movies (like the Spiderman and X-Men movies), the characters felt like they came from a comic book's page. As an avid comic book reader, I felt quite at home in this film.
I hope that this inspires more directors to make comic book movies and keep the comic book aesthetic in them. If we get really lucky, someone might be able to recreate Tim Sale's or Sam Kieth's styles successfully too.