Sin City.
Simultaneous worldwide releases. Three words the movie industry need to learn and adapt to instead of adding artificial constraints and ignoring the predictable consequences of supply and demand. The entertainment industry is only hurting itself and creating a demand for bootleggers by delaying releases. Sin City was released at the start of April but will not be officialy released in Europe until June. To anyone who has been on a modern aeroplane and watched films on displays not much bigger than a postage stamp, it should come as no surprise that people are willing to put up with very poor quality video if is convenient. Despite it not being released yet I have already watched Sin City, well most of it. As a result of the low quality I do not have much to say on the details but it beats waiting until right in the middle of my exams for the official release.
The reviews did nothing to reduce my anticipation, in fact this extremely critical review of Sin City had exactly the opposite effect. Even when I read that Roberto Rodrigeuz broke every rule in the book I was optimistic, but worried, particularly because narration is so often badly used in movies to compensate for poor writing. Soliloquy is nearly a better description than narration, even if in most cases the actors lips are not moving they are speaking their thoughts directly to the audience and adding extra depth rather than some disembodied narrator filling in the plot holes. The dialog in Sin City is not great and characters speak in such a similar way it can be monotonous at times but given this is both a comic book and intentionally done in the style of an old film-noir you might be willing to forgive the over the top delivery.
The violence is extereme and would be far more disturbing if the film were in full colour, rather than splashes of colour against the stylised inky black and sharp white background. Sin City marks a new stage of maturity for the comic book movie. This film is most certainly not family friendly feelgood entertainment.
The film was refreshingly different and really brought the comic book aesthetic to the screen. I enjoyed it enough that I am likely to go see it again when it is eventually released in Europe.