April Thrills

1) Sin City (Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller).

Hmm. On one side are critics calling this the best movie of the year, best comic book translation ever, great film noir, etc. And on the other side are a few critics calling this a violent movie, with too much blood and degrading to women, etc.

The truth is in the middle. First off, the movie is not close to being as violent and bloody as some are making it out to be. The black and white does offset some of the violence, and then the really gory elements are implied not shown.

Ok, now to the good part! The movie is not a graphic novel adaptation; IT IS a living breathing graphic novel. Rodriquez has taken each panel of Miller’s three Sin City graphic novels and put them on screen. That is just an amazing accomplishment. The black & white with shades of colour, the impressive lighting are just marvelous! Colour against black and white was used much better in Pleasantville but it makes a mark in some places here.

So how good is this movie? It’s good but not that great. Why? Well for a graphic novel, the story lines are perfect. But in order to make a movie, one needs to cut down on the narration -- the first 20 minutes or so are packed with too much narration. But after the first 20 minutes or so, the movie settles in, and the story takes over; I even forgot to pay attention to the visuals because the characters the interleaving story was interesting.

The film noir elements are all there but where were the femme fatales? I hate to say it but none of the women were appealing at all. Ok, maybe except the brief cameo by Carla Gugino was good. And Jessica Alba was plain wasted.

Acting wise, all the leading men did a good job with Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke being the best. This movie has been compared to Pulp Fiction. That is a shame really! Because Sin City may be good but nowhere near as good as Pulp Fiction. And the guest appearance directed scene by Tarantino is nothing to shout about.

Elijah Wood is a great addition as the soul eating killer. His white shades against the black background look very very nice.

Overall Rating: It was worth watching but I was not bowled over as most other people.

2) Spartan (Directed by David Mamet)

I had such high hopes from this movie. David Mamet writes such interesting story lines (The Spanish Prisoner) and characters that I thought this would be an intriguing crime thriller. But I was seriously wrong. The movie starts off interesting but it goes off the rail after the 50 minute mark. After that everything looks fake with the ‘Dubai’ scenes being the worst; we can clearly tell everything in ‘Dubai’ is a set and the movie does nothing to hide that fact.

But once again, it amazes me that critics praised this movie. Seriously, it is not that complicated. The plot is so easy to see through that there is nothing to ponder about.

Overall Rating: Not worth watching.

3) The Bourne Supremacy

This was much better than I had expected. It is a fast paced thriller, which does run a little bit longer than it should have. The movie starts off in Goa and then winds it way past Naples, Berlin, Amsterdam, Moscow before ending up in New York. There are some long car chase scenes and extended periods of the movie contain no dialogue.

Overall rating: Much better than Spartan, even if the dialogues and scenarios seem clichéd.