by Kelly Dobbin

Created on: January 17, 2009

This is not a comic book movie. It is a graphic novel movie. Graphic as in graphic violence; graphic as in graphic sexual content; just plain graphic. Spiderman is a comic book movie. Batman and Robin is a comic book movie. Dick Tracy is a comic strip movie. Sin City is something else entirely.

For those of you unfamiliar with the difference between comic books and graphic novels: graphic novels are comic books all grown up. They are longer with more mature themes and more complex characters and story lines. They are most decidedly not intended for children, and neither is this movie.

I have never read Frank Miller's Sin City series of graphic novels, but I doubt his fans would be disappointed by the adaptation. After all, Miller is credited as co-director, although Robert Rodriguez (Once Upon A Time In Mexico) shot and edited the flick, with Quentin Tarantino directing one of the acts. My bet is that Miller contributed the storyboards in the form of his books. Watching the film, you can almost see the pages turning.

Sin City is in black and white, with touches of color for effect: a red dress, a pair of green or blue eyes, a red convertible and lots and lots of blood in a surprising palette of colors. The movie has a retro feel, with its cars from the fifties or earlier and beyond trite film noir dialogue, but many characters use cell phones, and there are many modern and postmodern elements. It seems to exist outside of any real time period, like Tim Burton's Batman.

This is a film in four acts, with a prologue and an epilogue. It is narrated throughout by the "heroes" of its various acts. The prologue is a short seduction/love scene that ends in a hired hit. Josh Hartnett (40 Days and 40 Nights) is the assassin/narrator. He only makes two short appearances in the picture, but they serve as bookends.

Hartigan (Bruce Willis) is an aging cop with a heart problem who is on the verge of retirement, and he narrates the first act. He is one of only two characters in the film that might actually be considered "good." He is desperately trying to save a little girl from a serial rapist. The biggest problem here is that the rapist also happens to be the son of Senator Rourk, and the Rourk family runs Sin City. The name of the town is actually Basin City, but corruption and a conveniently faded sign give it its nickname.

Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) plays Bob, Hartigan's partner. Madsen has the distinction of delivering the first groan-inducing film noir nugget: "You got

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