Face-Off: Sin City vs. 300

Bruce Willis as John Hartigan
Jessica Alba as Nancy
Clive Owen as Dwight
Benicio del Toro as Jack
Roasario Dawson as Gail
Mickey Rourke as Marv
Carla Gugino as Lucille
Michael Clarke Duncan as Manute
Alexis Biedel as Becky
Brittany Murphy as Shellie
Nick Stahl as Roark Junior/Yellow Bastard
Powers Boothe as Senator Roark
Devon Aoki as Miho
Jaime King as Goldie/Wendy
Rutger Hauer as Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark
Josh Hartnett as The Salesman
Marley Shelton as The Customer

What was done on SIN CITY has not been done before or since on a major comic book/graphic novel film, in that both an A-list director, Robert Rodriguez, and a novel's author, Frank Miller, collaborated on a huge movie together, getting dual credit for their efforts. With Rodriguez, you got the experience – the tech-savvy, stylistic flair that brought the movie to life, and with Miller, you got the man who created the original material and worked closely with the actors to get them in the proper mindset of the characters. Together they make the perfect team for this project, balancing all the right ingredients to make this ambitious translation (more so than an adaptation, in Rodriguez's words) of the source material that looks and feels as if it was ripped right from the pages and put directly onto the screen. While Rodriguez may have been able to pull it off without Miller having the same level of credit as he did — still able to deliver the same pulpy, noir thrills and achieve the same level of visual impact — having Miller there ensured the film stayed as authentic to the roots as possible, which is what makes the movie have the impact it does. In terms of taking a graphic novel and bringing it to the screen, no director(s) have been able to do as good and masterful a job at making the movie look and feel like it's own beast while at the same time delivering on exactly what the fans of the material would want from a movie. It's a genius execution in both fan service, filmmaking and respect to the source material, and not really something that has been achieved on the same level in the genre since.

Anyone who remembers SIN CITY fondly may remember that during the opening credits there's no indication of a "Screenplay by" credit for the movie, rather a "Based on" credit to Miller and his novels. The reason why is this movie is, for the most part, a straight translation of the graphic novels with much of Miller's story and dialogue staying directly intact. There are no major liberties taken that change the stories too much, and the dialogue is just as gripping as it was in the novels. So for the sake of this particular arena, it all comes down to that translation of the story. In this case, Miller and Rodriguez did an excellent job taking the stories from the "Sin City" canon — mainly The Hard Goodbye, The Yellow Bastard and The Big Fat Kill (and The Customer is Always Right in the beginning)– and fleshing them out for the screen. Some stuff might be missing from the novels for time, but still, the stories feature fully formed characters with plenty of stakes and motivations to make the stories compelling in their own way. It's like watching a cinematic universe play out on screen before Marvel got there years later. The stories also flow seamlessly together when moving out of one and into another, and in the case of The Hard Goodbye, picking it up later after two major stories in between. It moves and plays out like PULP FICTION if it were a hyper-stylized comic book movie — which is also another testament to Rodriguez and Miller behind the camera.

Bits:

Whisper of the Gunshot

Old Man Dies, Little Girl Lives

The Goddess 

Marv vs. Cops

Nancy’s First Dance

Marv Goes Hunting

Kevin

Marv vs Kevin Round 2

Marv kills Roark

Dwight and Jack

Deadly Little Miho

Talking Dead

The Pits

Hookers Attack

Hartigan Pays the Price

The Yellow Bastard

Nancy Grown Up

Hartigan Bashes the Bastard

Fair Trade

Lines:

Marv: Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.

—–

Hartigan: An old man dies. A young woman lives. A fair trade. I love you, Nancy.

—–

Marv: The night's as hot as hell. It's a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town – I'm staring at a goddess. She's telling me she wants me. I'm not going to waste one more minute wondering how I've gotten this lucky. She smells like angels ought to smell, the perfect woman… the Goddess. Goldie. She says her name is Goldie.

—–

Hartigan: I take away his weapon…both of them.

—–

Hartigan: Hell of a way to end a partnership.

—–

Marv: That there is one damn fine coat you're wearin'.

—–

Marv: I'll stare the bastard in the face as he screams to God, and I'll laugh harder when he whimpers like a baby. And when his eyes go dead, the hell I send him to will seem like heaven after what I've done to him.

—–

Dwight: I'm Shellie's new boyfriend and I'm out of my mind. If you so much as talk to her or even think her name, I'll cut you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman.

—–

Dwight: The Fire, baby. It'll burn us both. It'll kill us both. There's no place in this world for our kind of fire. My warrior woman. My Valkyrie. You'll always be mine. Always… and never.

—–

Wendy: Kill em' for me Marv. Kill 'em good.

—–

Dwight: First, we gotta rescue Gail. Then comes the kill. The big, fat kill.

—–

Marv: I check the list. Rubber tubing, gas, saw, gloves, cuffs, razor wire, hatchet, Gladys, and my mitts.

—–

SIN CITY was made in 2004 and released in early 2005, and at the time it was only of only a handful of movies made almost virtually all against a green screen. This type of filmmaking was incredibly new at the time, made even more groundbreaking that Rodriguez also shot the movie on digital, also a budding technique at the time. This – including the black and white conversion and use of colorization in key details – made the movie look exactly like how the characters and scenes did in the comics, creating a visual style unseen on the big screen at the time. The blacks are deep and emphasize the whites for a dynamic effect that makes the B&W have a more visceral effect, while the minimal use of color pops against the surrounding non-color. Even after all these years, these effects look fantastic, even when the fast moments and wide shots tend to emphasize the infancy of the technology. The tracking shot of the hookers firing down on the thugs below in The Big Fat Kill segment – the blood red sky in the background – is a good example of what I'm talking about, what with my more season eye for visual effects noticing the very obvious green screen in the back. Still, this movie earns marks for still looking so damn cool and striking all these years later, with any faults few and far between.

How do you make a seedy, noir score seem fresh and fit into an ultra-stylized, graphic novel world? Why, you combine a variety of styles ranging from suave, sultry, jazz sounds to fast-paced, hard-hitting guitar tracks and combine them with the ominous tones you'd find in any mystery movie. Rodriguez, who also does a lot of the music on his movies, collaborated with John Debney and Graeme Revell for the movie's score, creating a kaleidoscopic sound that's edgy, sexy and wild. SIN CITY is a wide world filled will all sorts of fiendish characters and steamy romance, and a great score needed to highlight every inch of the world Rodriguez and Miller brought to life.

SIN CITY combined several of Miller's graphic novels into one movie, but instead of trying to mesh it all into one narrative the movie does each justice by splitting them up and turning it into a sort of anthology movie. This is a genius move, and next to the visuals is the defining element of the movie. It would've been so easy to hone in on one story and scrap together some sort of clunky story that incorporates other books, but this big-screen treatment was all about honoring the books in the purest of ways. Many of the best panels from each of the stories is brought thrillingly to life, while none of the characters feel washed or forgotten in the mix. Between the spectacular visuals and the great character work, this is a loving translation of the books fans love, proving how well the two mediums complement each other.

SIN CITY is remembered fondly by both fans of comics and cinephiles in general, with admirers on all sides acknowledging it as a groundbreaking entry in the genre that really only 300 has dared to match on a visual level. For this, it's held in high esteem even over a decade later, both a showcase for incredible visuals and terrific performances. There's so much to look back on and to hold a place for in pop culture, like Mickey Rourke's incredible work as Marv and Jessica Alba's scene-stealing work with that lasso of hers. In the Golden Age of comic book movies we're in today, it's more important than ever that SIN CITY stands out from the pack, showing what you can do with the medium when you put artistic representation ahead of commercial gain.

Awards:

Golden Schmoes:

Winner:

• Best Director of the Year
  • Robert Rodriguez
  • Frank Miller
• Trippiest Movie of the Year
• Best Supporting Actor of the Year
  • Mickey Rourke
• Coolest Character of the Year
  • 'Marv'
• Favorite Movie Poster of the Year
• Best DVD/Blu-Ray of the Year
  • 'Sin City: Extended Edition'
• Best T&A of the Year
  • Jessica Alba

Nominee:

• Favorite Movie of the Year
• Best Special Effects of the Year
• Best Music in a Movie
• Best Trailer of the Year
• Best T&A of the Year
  • Carla Gugino
• Best Line of the Year
  • "Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything."

**34 Wins & 51 Nominations per IMDb**

Praise:

Rotten Tomatoes: 77% (78% Audience Score)

Metacritic: 74 (8.8 Audience)

IMDb: 8.0

Money:

$74 million ($158 million globally)

SIN CITY in no way shies away from the violence. While colorization techniques highlight the more striking features on some characters, there's plenty of gushing, red blood to be seen. It all stands out much better against the black and white, too, and I remember this being the must-see movie for me and my friends in our teens, simply because of the stylized gore. And stylized is a bit of an understatement. While there are some grounded, noir tones the action is completely over the top and perfect for the comic book world. Seemingly normal people are doing incredible feats of strength and agility, leaping off buildings and taking all sort of hits and explosions. This movie does not hold back on the action at all, and it still hits as hard today as ever before, thanks primarily to the aforementioned strength of the visuals.