Sin City (Special Edition) -- DVD Review

It was my uncle who first got me interested in comics. My family would spend 2 or 3 weeks at my paternal grandparents' in Nova Scotia every summer, and one summer when I was around 7 or 8 I found a decent-sized stack of my uncle's funnybooks -- Jonah Hex, Shogun Warriors, Marvel Team-Up and the like. I mostly remember two things: Hostess Fruit Pies ads and the smell of the paper. The next summer -- or maybe it was the summer after that -- my uncle bought me a giant-size comic, almost what could be called a trade paperback. It contained a bunch of stories, but the one I'll always remember focused on The Thing. In the story, a washed-up pro wrestler takes an experimental drug (sound familiar?) to obtain the strength of a crocodile. (Apparently crocodiles are really strong, though one wonders why he didn't take a drug which would give him the strength of, say, a grizzly bear. Or the agility of a mongoose.) It's up to Ben Grimm to take him down -- Galactus and the Cosmic Cube can wait. In the end, the wrestler turns into an actual crocodile. Pretty routine stuff, but at the time I was convinced it was the most amazing story ever written.

From then on, whenever we'd visit my grandparents' I made it a point to pester my mom into buying me comics, and I vividly remember those early ones -- Marvel comics such as The New Mutants and Daredevil mostly, although I tried to force myself to like Superman and other DC titles.

But comic reading was "a summer thing." It wasn't until my eleventh year that I consciously, almost gravely -- like a boy talking himself into jumping from the high diving board -- decided I would become a comic collector. This was a very serious undertaking, I was aware. These days, what with the Internet, it's easier to get info on a character's backstory and history, but in those days all one had was word of mouth, reprints, and reading the damn things. This was a lofty task, I felt.

I bought my first comic book (Uncanny X-Men no. 248, the first Jim Lee-pencilled issue) when I was in the fifth grade. Thus began my bold comic-collecting foray, one which lasted, on and off, until my early twenties. I still have an interest in the genre, but -- and my 12-year-old self would be shocked to hear it -- it doesn't exactly drive me insane not knowing every minute detail of what's happening these days in comicdom.

I started collecting comics just prior to the early 90's boom; and I must admit, I was a fan of some of the most hated artists (Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane...) and gimmicks (lenticular, holographic, glow-in-the-dark covers, polybagged issues...) of the period. I know a little better now (though I still wish McFarlane would draw comics, and good ones), but at the time I was loyal to Marvel superheroes, and mostly I still am.

It wasn't until my twentieth year that I read Alan Moore's zenith of the medium, Watchmen, but during my teens I tried to broaden my comics horizon. One of the books I picked up during that time was issue 1 of Frank Miller's Sin City, "That Yellow Bastard" (word to Kim Jong-Il). I loved the hard-boiled dialogue, the stark violence. Mostly I loved Miller's use of black and white, which was some of the greatest comics art I'd ever seen.

I was amazed.

I never bought another issue.

Shame on me, and shame on me for neglecting to see Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller*'s (with an assist from one Quentin Tarantino) mind-blowing film adaptation until now. Sometimes I'm such a broomhead.

Sin City isn't only a comic book-based film, it is a comic book -- one fantastically brought to life for the visual medium. It is the Citizen Kane of comic book movies. I say that without any pretension, and I'm astounded that it didn't earn at least one Academy Award for technical achievement. Then again, Orson Welles's monument of filmmaking was overlooked in the Best Film category in favor of How Green Was My Valley. So there you go.

Coincidentally (not including the brief Josh Hartnett-starring prelude), Sin City opens with issue 1 of Miller's 'That Yellow Bastard.' Not only is the dialogue exact, the shots mimic the book so precisely that I got a queer sense of deja vu.

What follows are three separate storylines, slightly connected by characters and the titular location, Basin "Sin" City. First is the Mickey Rourke-starring tale, 'The Hard Goodbye,' about an ugly, bullet-proof thug who seeks vengeance after a woman who was kind enough to give him a throw is murdered. Given his already frightening, ostensibly-prosthetic visage, I'm not too sure why special FX make-up was needed, but it's clear from the get-go that this is Rourke's defining role, in fact the only role I recall him ever being memorable in. Props.

The succeeding tale, 'The Big Fat Kill,' is my favorite of the film's three stories. It takes a little longer than 'The Hard Goodbye' to get going, but once it does, boy, hold on. Benicio Del Toro plays Jackie-Boy, a woman-beating scumbag who gets on the wrong side of Dwight (played well, but with a god-awful American accent, by Clive Owen), and later the assembled hookers who control Old Town. But when Jackie-Boy is slain and discovered to be a cop, all hell threatens to break loose...and does. Sin City relies more on style than inventive storytelling, but 'The Big Fat Kill' is one hell of a yarn.

The final story (again, not including the Harnett bookends), 'That Yellow Bastard,' continues the opening storyline, following Hartigan (Bruce Willis) as he's convicted for the crimes of the pedophilic son of a corrupt senator, whom he stopped and whose weapons -- both of them -- he took away. Fearing that the girl he saved eight years ago is in danger, Hartigan admits to the crimes he didn't commit, and is thusly parolled. A little too easy, non? Oui; little does Hartigan know that he's being used as bait.

Hyper-violent in the extreme, Sin City isn't for everyone. Though comics-style exaggeration and unique coloring lend it a detached-from-reality surrealism, making the film easier to digest, there are parts where it's overdone and even I, no stranger to violence on film, felt more than a little sqeamish.

If you can handle it, though, it's a delight -- both for its seamless blending of two mediums and its relentless pace. Sin City is like film noir on acid. It has its minor flaws (the aforementioned Clive Owen accent; a horrible turn courtesy of Michael Clarke Duncan, whose career should be locked up and put to death like his character in The Green Mile; and portions which too closely resemble Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), but mostly it's every fanboy's cinematic fantasy come true: a comic book come to life, broken down (to paraphrase The RZA) in its purest form.

The Special Edition DVD also joins the elite echelon of the packed The Lord of the Rings and Hellboy SE DVDs in my collection that I'll probably never get around to immersing myself in.

Peep game:

Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Recut and extended theatrical release with over 20 minutes of additional footage- separated into four stories
Original theatrical release including:
All-new feature commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
All-new feature commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
An audio track featuring a recording of the Austin premiere audience reaction
Exclusive never-before-seen extras:
15-minute film school with Robert Rodriguez
The movie in high-speed green screen
The Long Take: 17 uninterrupted minutes of Tarantino's segment
Sin City Night at Antones -- filmmakers, cast and crew party
10-minute cooking school with Robert Rodriguez
Bloopers
Teaser & theatrical trailers
A Hard Top With a Decent Engine: The cars of Sin City
Making the Monsters: Special effects make-up
Trench Coats & Fishnets: The costumes of Sin City
Booze, Broads & Guns: The props of Sin City
How it Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to make the film
Giving the Characters Life: Casting the film
Special guest director: Quentin Tarantino
Sin-Chroni-City interactive game
Film soundtrack

I'm reminded of an early Seinfeld episode in which George accompanies Jerry to a bank and tries to have a large jar full of pennies converted into dollars. When the teller suggests he roll them himself and then return to cash them in, George obstinately shouts "What, should I quit my job?"

That's how these uber-stuffed DVDs make me feel. But it's nice knowing that I have a few huge jars full of pennies to cash in one day when I find the time. I look forward to catching Sin City's full experience when I'm old and incontinent. Plus, who needs Cialis or Viagra when one has Carla Gugino and Jessica Alba?

Am I right?

Rating: 4 out of 4 *_*


* Watching Frank Miller "direct" ranks a perfect 100 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale. Word to Bill Simmons.