Filed under: Movies
Over the last decade,beginning with the success of Blade in 1998 and the X-Men in 2000, we’ve had a string of comic book/graphic novel inspired movies ranging from The Hulk to The History Of Violence making their way to the big screen.Some of these films like Sin City are the stuff of dreams( a comic book geek’s dream no less). A visually immaculate conception that one could have never imagined being realised a decade ago. Taking advantage of advances in technology and utilising ground breaking film making techniques, the movie plays out like a graphic novel come to life.But the success of the film is not simply attributed to techncial excellence alone. The bold decision taken by Roger Rodriguez (who for all his reputation as a gungho film maker of movies like El Mariachi and Desperado i’ve never taken too seriously, simply because he was also responsible for Spy Kids.) to remain faithful to the creation of Frank Miller is in many ways what makes the film really tick. It might have killed off any hope of marketing the film for the masses, but it did not disappoint the core group of fan boys who would cried afoul at any attempt to sanitise the original material. Ofcourse some would argue, like myself that Jessica Alba’s character SHOULD HAVE taken her top off to reveal her fantastic knockers and that ‘the Yellow Bastard’ character should have gone completely nude in certain crucial scenes as in the graphic novel. But ofcourse that would have been too much to ask for especially considering the great distaste for male frontal nudity in most forms of celluloid other than in pornography .But we still SHOULD HAVE got Jessica Alba in all her full titted glory! I’m not a pervert…just a purist.:)
On a side note, though i personally feel Sin City is the best example of a graphic novel commited to film, i have minor gripes with it like the casting of Bruce Willis as ‘John Hartigan’ and Josh Hartnett who is just simply out of place in the harsh film noir world envisioned by Miller. Having said that, the casting choice for Mickey Rourke as Marv alone is pure genius. No one else could have pulled that off except maybe a younger Clint Eastwood. As much as i appreciate Sin City, it is one of those movies i cannot stand to watch more than once with the exception of some memorable scenes.
