SIN CITY

BVI

RELEASED 3 June 2005

Feel the cast! Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Elijah Wood, Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Madsen. A-list stars and high-fliers come together in this ultra-violent black and white (with the occasional splash of colour) adaptation of Frank Miller’s acclaimed graphic novel. Taking three interlinked stories, we meet the indestructible Marv (Rourke) who’s on the trail of a cannibal who murdered his prostitute lover, a cop (Bruce Willis) who has made it his goal to protect stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba) from a rapist, and a detective (Clive Owen) who gets in with a murderous crowd of hookers. ‘Sin City’ is a hard-boiled gem! Filmed entirely against green screen with the backgrounds added later, each scene is precisely lifted from the page. The acting is knowing, the dialogue is mannered yet fun, and the whole ‘experiment’ is a joy to behold. One fault is the film’s length, which is possibly down to the strict adaptation of the comic. Sawing twenty minutes off the running time would have helped. Still, ‘Sin City’ is an unqualified success, at least giving us something different in the summer market of sequel-mania.

THREE OUT OF FIVE