While it's a given that a movie as adventurous and risky as SIN CITY is will surely divide audiences -- it's a love-it or hate-it experience, with little in between -- I'm not sure how anyone could hate this movie completely. Slavishly borne from the pages of Frank Miller's acclaimed graphic novels, this hard-boiled gangster revisionism by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Spy Kids) is dazzlingly designed and admittedly light on substance. Such evaluations, however, are somewhat beside the point; you can take the narrative apart, sure, but SIN CITY is not about its dialogue or even its story. The film entrances the viewer with its edgy, bleak, gorgeous visual palette...it as close to a museum-quality work of visual art as Hollywood as ever seen.

Be prepared: Miller and Rodriguez's universe is not for the faint of heart. In SIN CITY, there are big, heaping piles of violence, sex, and profanity (the titular town completely deserves its name), and all of it is splayed against a paper-thin world of corrupt cops, headstrong prostitutes, and twisted serial killers. If you any of the above, or retro-chic nihilism, or even simplistic stories and casual character development...well, perhaps you shouldn't go to movies based on comic books. For my part, the seedy underworld is rendered so complete (and so gorgeously) that questions of morality are moot -- this is their world, and we are only invited to briefly peek inside. The performances make the computer-generated mean streets very alive, and many of the performances are surprising. (Mickey Rourke can act! Jessica Alba can almost act! Bruce Willis is so cool he makes my toes freeze! Clive Owen is sex on a stick! Rosario Dawson is chewing the scenery AND Clive Owen's lip at the same time!)

At his core, Rodriguez is a director in love with the spectacle of movies...and doesn't care about much else. The graphic detail and devout adherence to Miller's source material may seem unnecessary slavish, but for this director, that very discipline explodes the commonly held belief that narrative is paramount. Rodriguez places a primacy on genre and style, with thrilling results. His films almost seem to say: you want complex characters and nuanced plot? Go find Merchant and Ivory.

Rodriguez's focus, however, makes his films an acquired taste for a specialized audience -- one that places heavy weight on the visual and the visceral, an audience that does not even require the verbose posturing of Tarantino in order to have a good time. Which is a long way of saying that SIN CITY is not for everyone; indeed, it may not be for many people at all. But for fanboys, style junkies and modern art lovers, Frank Miller’s silver-and-black elegance may be a slice of cinematic heaven. As pretty pictures go, SIN CITY is just about as good as it gets.

-- Gabriel Shanks