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Sin Cityis a comic book for grownups—specifically for grownups who appreciate film noir.

Film noir, as a genre, lacks a specific definition. Landmark noir films are characterized by a prevalent darkness, both visual and spiritual. The "heroes" find themselves in difficult situations, where they have to rebel against the system to achieve their goals; thus noir often focuses on criminals driven by necessity or do-gooders reluctantly employing desperate, violent, illegal methods. Authority figures are typically portrayed as corrupt. Most have a femme fatale—an exaggeratedly sensual woman who spells trouble for the conflicted protagonist. Villains often make an impression by exhibiting an air of amusement as they inflict cruel and unusual punishment. Innocent people are rarely involved, but when they are, they suffer greatly.

We're left with an abiding sense that film noir characters live in a godless world, alone to mete out their own messy justice. We wouldn't want to live in a noir world, but as an exercise in storytelling about what the world looks like to those without faith, it has its merits. For a thorough exploration of noir's history as a style and a genre, read this summary by Eddie Muller (GreenCine).

Chinatown is considered a masterpiece of film noir, and so is Blade Runner—the supreme work of sci-fi noir—but American film noir had its beginnings from the '30s to the '50s. Classics include Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon.

Sin City takes noir a step farther. It takes the conventions of the genre and exaggerates them to the edge of lunacy. A colleague of mine described it as "camp noir." Director Robert Rodriguez, creator of El Mariachi and the Spy Kids franchises, uses startling, stark animation with live footage, and achieves a different result entirely from last year's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or, for that matter, the original live-action/computer-animation blend of Tron.

The film, like Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, delivers three relentlessly violent, sordid stories straight from the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Hartigan (Bruce Willis) is a policeman with a bad heart who promises to protect a young stripper (Jessica Alba.) Micky Rourke plays Marv, a beleaguered loner on a mission of vengeance after the death of his lover (Jaime King). Clive Owen plays Dwight, who's in love with a blonde (Brittany Murphy), but works to defend women of Sin City's red-light district (Rosario Dawson, Devon Aoki, Alexis Bledel) from a corrupt policeman (Benicio Del Toro).

The problem with Sin City is not its genre. The problem is the way that it exaggerates the conventions—brutality, morally misguided heroes, monstrous villains, and sensuality. People aren't likely to come away talking about the ethical dilemmas of the heroes; they'll be buzzing about the sensationalized blood, guts, and sexuality. The film ends up appealing to a viewer's baser appetites, which contributes to ensuring that our own world is, ultimately, a little darker.

"There is one crucial way in which Sin City, the film, is not like Sin City, the comics," says Peter T. Chattaway (Christianity Today Movies). "Each of the original stories was meant to be digested on its own, but the film strings several of them together, and the cumulative effect of sitting through so many grim, morbid, hyperviolent tales is numbing to the soul."

Chattaway describes this collection of stories as "an exercise in male fears and fantasies," and says that the theme of the stories seems to be "a deep distrust of authority, whether of the political or ecclesiastical kind."

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April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49