divine angst

Mr. Angst and I went to see Sin City today while we were avoiding our house (three agents showed today! Whoo hoo!).

As an artistic expression, the movie was amazing. Rodriguez managed to capture the feel of Miller’s graphic novels unerringly. This movie was comic-come-to-life. The use of color was brilliant, particulary when employed as a characterization. Lots of sillouhetting and a few grainier moments reminiscent of halftone printing added depth, and fight scenes had a comic flavor—bodies flying, single-punch knockouts, improbable wounds.

But the stories—they were intense. Seriously intense. Hard-core. Brutal characters, brutal situations, brutal brutal brutal. And there’s no shortage of gore—stylized gore, but gore nonetheless. I’m not totally squeamish, but there were moments that I had to look away. Apparently, the MPA approved it for an “R” rating without requesting any cuts—they “got” the stylized nature of the movie—but it was still almost too hard for me. No real relief—though a couple of comic characters do show up later. (Speaking of characters, Michael Madsen’s line readings in the beginning of the movie were really awful—stilted and with poor timing. When he shows up again, he’s better, but that first scene with him almost turned me off the movie. Oh, and Frodo, when he shows up, is SERIOUSLY creepy. Brrr. Creepy creepy.)

I thought the movie went about half an hour too long, particularly considering the plots. Two hours was almost too much to take.

So I give it a thumbs up—definitely see it, particularly if you like graphic novels. If you don’t do well at gory movies, you might have problems sitting through portions of the film, but it IS very stylized. But it’s worth it to see something new and different on the big screen.