Sin City, which opened in theaters Friday, faithfully recreates the comics by Frank Miller and represents an important milestone in digital film.  The comics were created as an alternative to the superhero genre and explores life and crimes in Basin City (Sin City) in a gritty hommage to film noir.  Sin City the movie gives us a film unlike anything we've seen before, it's not simply a film adaptation of a comic book but instead gives us Frank Miller's style of iconic impressionism in full motion.  The result is a film with lofty ambition that hits the mark so well it is certain to be immitated and might just breathe new life into the comic book film. 

Director Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) provides an important milestone in digital film, he's long been one of few directors to shoot big budget films with HD digital video equipment.  Not only was it shot on digital film but the entire film used a “digital backlot” method where actors work in front of a green (or blue) background that is filled in later with CGI.  Sin City is the first Hollywood (North American) film to use both the digital backlot and shoot on digit equipment, making it the first fully digital movie with live actors.  It’s debatable which is actually the first film ever to exclusively use the digital backdrop technique Immortel, Sky Captain or Casshern.

Rodriguez is a huge fan of Frank Miller’s and brought the artist/writer legend on board as co-director of the film despite the decision forcing him to resign from the Director’s Guild of America for letting Frank Miller appear in the credits as a director (protocol for director's is pretty stiff).  Rodriguez is in good company, fellow digital film maven George Lucas once had to pay a fine for trashing protocol by refusing to place credits at the beginning of a film he made called Star Wars.

Sin City itself stars as the backdrop for three converging plotlines with troubled anti-heroes trying their best to do what they believe is right.  A black and white world accentuated with flashes of cold silver and occasional muted colors.  The movie captures the look of the graphic novels so well that moving scenes often looked miraculously like one of Frank Miller’s drawings come to life.  From the white lenses of Kevin’s glasses contrasting against the shadowy farm, splashes of white “cartoon” blood on Hartigan’s jacket.  The film is visually stunning as it alternates from the gritty realism of hard boiled detective movies of the 40s to darkly impressionistic cityscapes eternally mired in twilight, bloodshed and gun toting prostitutes.  The artistry and power of this film will seduce you like a polished nickel plated .357 magnum.

The cast is reminiscent of great films of a bygone era with its star power.  This could be the Ben Hur of our generation but probably more comparable to Bonnie and Clyde.  Notable young talent includes Nick Stahl, Brittney Murphy, Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett and Jessica Alba.  Established stars include Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan and the return of Mickey Rourke in the role he was born to play as Marv.  Not to forget Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe, Micheal Madsen, this movie could have become a mess with so many actors vying for attention in a single movie.  But it plays well, they never seem to forget the movies' real star is Sin City.  Quentin Tarantino even makes a directorial appearance doing the scene in the car with Del Toro and Clive Owen where they have an improbable conversation.  The scene bears Tarantino’s thumbprint but thankfully doesn’t scream that you’ve entered the Quentin zone.

Who won’t like this movie?  If you don’t appreciate a dark sense of humor or get bent out of shape seeing someone dragged along side a speeding car this might not be the movie for you.  It is a violent film with plenty of casual nudity but the gore is muted and far from realistic.  There's a lot of voice over narration in the film which might seem like a clunky way to move the story along but if you appreciate Frank Miller’s written word it’s easy to forgive this as just another unconventional feature.  I look forward to this film’s release to one of the hi-def optical storage mediums making its way to consumer’s soon, we’ll soon know if these HD digital films make a quality transfer to either HD DVD or Blu-Ray, I’m sure the results will be jaw dropping eye candy.