It was only a matter of time before Hollywood's obsession with turning comic books into movies would yield a comic book movie.
Robert Rodriguez's Sin City is not just based on three of Frank Miller's graphic novels but an attempt to recreate these crime sagas on film.
To make Miller's graphic novels come to life, Rodriguez has put his actors into computerized sets void of colour except when splashes of red, yellow, blue or green help make the moment even more visually arresting.
The opening sequence with Marley Shelton's florescent red lips and gown the only colour against a black landscape is undeniably intoxicating.
Still, this technique is not nearly as innovative or original as Rodriguez would have us believe.
Commercial directors have been doing this for years in campaigns for everything from toothpaste and toilet paper to clothing and cars.
Stunning as the effect may be initially, the digitalized sets are reminiscent of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Rodriguez's own Spy Kids 3D: Game Over.
Sin City is a film that glories in style rather than substance but that's to be expected.
The one-dimensional characters of the graphic novels are never flesh-and-blood characters but simply caricatures of fallen policemen, degenerate clergy, corrupt politicians and vile criminals.
Those are the men who inhabit Basin City. The women are all strippers, barmaids, prostitutes, lesbian social workers and assassins who, if they're not pure victims, are into S&M .
When the men aren't using these women, they're abusing them, often in unthinkable and unprintable ways.
As such, Sin City is a movie aimed at young males who revel in video games and comics which portray women as victims, temptresses or sluts and the men as their protectors or destroyers.
Rodriguez trumpets his ability to stage the graphic, numbing violence, degradation and obscenities of Miller's graphic novels on the pretext it's acceptable because it's cartoonish.
Bruce Willis is entirely believable as Hartigan, the policeman whose damaged heart is broken by Nancy (Jessica Alba) the stripper he rescued eight years earlier from a child molester (Nick Stahl).
Then again Willis's minimalist, dead-pan style of acting is eminently suited to cartoons.
Mickey Rourke is the film's real find.
He plays the pill-popping Marv like The Hulk on steroids and it's undeniable fun watching Rourke make fun of his real persona.
As Dwight, the private detective on the lam, Clive Owen is less effective because he thinks he's doing a real character.
Rosario Dawson deserves credit for strutting around in little more than leather straps spouting dialogue more ridiculous than her costume.
Sin City would like to think of itself as this decade's Pulp Fiction.
It uses the same structure of three overlapping stories, excessive violence and overwrought characters, but it lacks both the wit and the humanity that made Pulp Fiction both palpable and entertaining.
For about an hour Sin City is a guilty pleasure.
After that it's just guilty of being self-indulgent and self-congratulatory.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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