A Bleak Look at the World

'Sin City' opened this past weekend. Folks, it's not for the faint of heart. Or for anyone who has not at least partially embraced the post-feminist idea that a woman can be prostitute AND a feminist if she has a gun. Hollywood has adapted a lot of comic books, but usually film-makers grind off most of the edges on the stories and visuals to make them palatable to the wider audience that you need to turn a buck in the film world. Not so with 'Sin City.' The writer of the original series, Frank Miller, joined Robert Rodriguez as co-director. Miller's vision from the black and white, bloody comic is pretty much up there on screen. It's exhilarating, beautiful and, in the end, nothing but fun. (Don't look for any deep message beyond that Miller wishes he were more muscular than he is and that ladies were a little less clothed than most of us choose to be.)

I had worries that Mickey Rourke and the rest of the cast would be hollow-seeming in their artificial world, but they do a good job of making the comic come to life. Especially Rourke. His story, thanks solely to Rourke's abilities, comes the closest to being something more than a neat adventure.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

As good as Mickey Rourke is in this movie , Stick Stahl is just as good as The Yellow Bastard and deserves just as much credit.

Nick Stahl really was good. Once again, I had worried that he would be lost in his yellow-mask, but that kid can really act.

Now if only dull, dull Bruce Willis wasn't in the movie. Imagine how much better someone like Kevin Bacon (I know he's too young...) or Morgan Freeman would have been in the part. Bruce W is only good to watch when he is having fun. His morose acting is very static and sleep-inducing (see 'Pulp Fiction.') He juts out of ensemble pieces and not in a good way.

Willis was woefully miscast, he's two young and do dull for the roll. Is it just me or have all the tough guy types who would be in the right age group late 50's early 60's to play the role have either faded away from notice or died. Just think what Steve McQueen or Jack Lord might have done with the roll...

Please excuse my bad for in using the word roll instead of role.....