The Blood-Soaked Pretty Inch

"Sitting through the thing, watching scene after scene in which I was being asked to be entertained by the spectacle of helpless people being tortured, I kept thinking of those clean-cut young American guards at Abu Ghraib. That is exactly the mentality Rodriguez is celebrating here. "Sin City" is their movie."

That's from the movie review of "Sin City," as found in my local newspaper (note: also my employer, so there you go).

To me, there's stylized noir a la "Maltese Falcon" and "Chinatown" and then there's the video game variety in "Sin City." The former works on the notion of hidden dances of dialogue, of what's said and what's implied. It's about betrayal, a mountain of lies around every corner, people who you ally with but can't trust. It's about one man against a mosaic of corruption, and in the end the man finds the machinations of deceit and crime will keep going no matter what, so he crawls into the nearest bottle to convince himself he won something. "Sin City"? It's what Lucky Charms is to nutrition. Colorful, kinetic in the bloodstream, but ultimately empty as a simulation of food, not the real deal.

I've read from the volumes of "Sin City," which I don't recommend you do all at one on a rainy Saturday afternoon. While provocative and wildly drawn, it begins to blur with the acres of violence and gallons of blood. It's relentlessly one-note in delivery, albeit explosive. Here's a better allegory: Go down to your local gun range and listen to the rounds being fired for an hour. Without ear protection. That's "Sin City."

I'm staying away from the film because of that. I've seen the trade paperbacks of Miller's opus, and the film literally staples the images from the pages to the screen and zips you along to death and carnage. Compare this to John Huston making Hammett's "Falcon" into film. Huston took the words and gave them life, filled rooms with people and gave them emotions and consequences. Huston let Hammett talk in the film, giving Bogart his classic "If they hang you..." speech. For the life of me, I can't remember one good monologue out of Miller's work. It's MOOD with STYLE. It's Violence as the Story. It's why I've careened away from first-person shooter in video games. Eventually, the story is irrelevant, and everything is a killing spree.

There's little doubt in my mind that "Sin City" won't appeal to that lizardian sector of the brain that craves violence and explosions and sexy women in scraps of clothing. Just reading the names attached. Quentin Tarantino, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Bruce Willis. It's code to boys and men with the heart of boys to go sit down and watch a noir version of the "Itchy and Scratchy" movie if done by Dario Argento's evil relatives. And that's the problem with it for me. I know Miller's work. I have seen Willis in action. Quentin and Robert? Oh yeah, been there, done that. Sex, violence, brutality, profanity...mile wide, inch deep. But it's a right pretty inch. You laugh despite yourself when the head explodes from the bullet.

I have to agree with the Seattle Weekly's assessment that, in the end, the film is going to drag in the comic book faithful and be lost on the rest of us. It'll have a good couple weeks, maybe a month or so from the hardcore fans, and then "Episode 3" will obliterate everything in its path. Not just because it's the last Star Wars film, but because it'll appeal to the casuals as well as the fanboys. Hyperviolence? May have worked at the Roman Coliseum. May work for CNN. But seeing recreational bloodshed at $8-$10 a pop? No, the die-hards do that. The casuals will wait for action and plot. Humor's good, too. If there's any justice, the odd-ball "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" will swamp the splatter of "Sin City."

Here's my prediction:

The Pope will die this weekend.

Terri Schiavo will still be a big deal.

"Sin City" will top the box office.

All will be heavily watched events because we Americans are drawn to the bizarre and the morbid. If busybodies can give up a month of their life to protest the death of a woman who died 15 years ago, then anything's possible. "Sin City" comes out at just the right time for Americans. After being dragged through the grueling process of watching the cruel dance of death for a Florida woman, moviegoers can go in and decompress with irrelevant blood and gore. Heroes surviving mortal wounds while ripping apart foes. Doesn't matter if its the antihero. It's even better that way, just get me out of this world and let me live without morals on screen. All this and popcorn, too.