Tag: Benicio Del Toro

No Sudden Move (2021, Steven Soderbergh)

I spent most of No Sudden Move hoping against hope it’d somehow end well. Unfortunately, by the end of Move, I’d forgotten it started as a potential pulpy franchise for Don Cheadle (twenty-five years after Devil in a Blue Dress maybe he could get the one he deserved). The third act is such a slog, the stunt cameo reveal is so protracted, and the “real world” reveal is so labored, I’d forgotten what the movie was even ostensibly about.

No Sudden Move, if the stylized opening titles, the stylized music, and the stylized visuals (director Soderbergh and cinematographer “Peter Andrews” shoot the entire thing with slight fisheye lens) don’t give it away, is a series of homages to various film noir classics. There are some very obvious homages, then some less obvious ones, then the ones where recycling now familiar homages thanks to other movies using the same homage device. After a very gimmicky and very effective first act MacGuffin, it’s clear there’s not going to be anything new to Move so might as well enjoy the good acting, directing, and nostalgia.

It works until the third act, which goes entirely awry starting with a very bad stunt cameo. At first it seems like the second half is going to be all stunt cameos but when Kevin Scollin turns out not to be Steve Guttenberg, then the single stunt cameo is just… unfortunate. The twists and turns of the third act are all unfortunate as well; Move’s never ambitious—aggressively racist Italian mob flunky Benicio Del Toro abuse of Black man Cheadle ends in their second scene together and while there’s a little more to the female characters than you’d expect in a fifties noir… there’s not much more (and we’re not counting Soderbergh’s fisheye thing as ambitious, he’s just carrying a gag on too long)—but it’s always pretty good. The film finds a decent balance of dangerous and engaging. It’s never quirky, but it’s occasionally wry.

And Cheadle’s great.

Del Toro’s really good too, but the part’s not as good. Then as the film progresses, Cheadle’s part gets worse and Del Toro’s follows suit. David Harbour—playing the suburban dad whose family is in danger from hired guns Cheadle, Del Toro, and a very effective Kieran Culkin—is third-billed. He gets a lot to do but not really. Ditto cop Jon Hamm. Move assembles a picture perfect cast and gives them very little to do. Cheadle at least gets something to do for long stretches of the film. No one else.

Lots of good acting in the supporting parts. Brendan Fraser’s the guy who puts the job together, Ray Liotta and Bill Duke are the warring local crime bosses who both have it out for Cheadle, Amy Seimetz as Harbour’s wife. There really aren’t any female roles. Seimetz gets more than everyone else, but she’s still mostly there to support Harbour or son Noah Jupe. Jupe’s okay. It’d be better if he were better.

It’d be better if the writing for him were better too.

Hamm in particular is completely wasted.

Harbour’s good, but it’s far from a breakout part or performance. The third-billing is a bit of deceptive aggrandizing.

I’m tempted to give a list of movies to watch instead of No Sudden Move, which is far from the reaction I wanted to have. Even with the fisheye, I was rooting for No Sudden Move and making a lot of allowances for Ed Solomon’s script. But the third act is just too much of a mess. And Soderbergh completely gives up on it with the directing too; after waiting for him to leverage the fisheye the entire movie (there’s maybe one shot of Harbour where the fisheye emphasizes his perspective), Soderbergh has to go high contrast to hide the lack of budget and it looks really, really bad. Twelve year-olds filming toy dinosaurs in their backyards with Super 8s have done better action shots.

No Sudden Move’s not not a waste of time and energy. There’s good acting but for nothing.

The Wolfman (2010, Joe Johnston)

If someone had told me Anthony Hopkins was going to have a major role… he’s so laughably bad, it’d be funny–if the joke of The Wolfman wasn’t on me.

Universal Studios doesn’t have any comic book properties so they’re apparently going to go through their horror catalog and churn out more turds like The Wolfman. It’s supposed to be an “adult” horror movie (it’s for thirteen year old boys at best), but it’s really a hodgepodge of mediocre special effects and superhero movie stupidity (this movie wouldn’t have existed without League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Ang Lee’s Hulk or Wolf for that matter). It reminds me of The Jackal, another terrible Universal remake.

The werewolf transformations are poor, CG-added to American Werewolf in London. Nothing more.

Actually, it starts all right–well, it starts not terrible (it rips off Bram Stoker’s Dracula a lot)–but the toilet flushes once they get to London. There’s no point to the trip except to show a CG werewolf on rooftops.

There’s some rather good acting–Emily Blunt’s way too classy for this one (the film feels less British than the original, which shouldn’t be possible). Geraldine Chaplin is good in what should have been the film’s most important role, but wasn’t.

Every change the screenwriters make from the original is awful. The cinematography’s at best pedestrian–from Shelly Johnson; Danny Elfman phones in the score. But the real disappointment is Johnston. His direction has absolutely no personality, just like the film.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Johnston; screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on a story by Curt Siodmak; director of photography, Shelly Johnson; edited by Dennis Virkler and Walter Murch; music by Danny Elfman; production designer, Rick Heinrichs; produced by Scott Stuber, Benicio Del Toro, Rick Yorn and Sean Daniel; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot), Emily Blunt (Gwen), Hugo Weaving (Aberline), Art Malik (Singh), Antony Sher (Dr. Hoenneger), Simon Merrells (Ben Talbot) and Geraldine Chaplin (Maleva).

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Che: Part Two (2008, Steven Soderbergh)

Bolivia didn’t do Butch and Sundance any favors and it doesn’t do Che any either. Che: Part Two isn’t just a downer for Del Toro’s franchising revolutionary (he’s bringing the revolution to Bolivia, whether they want it or not), but it’s an entirely depressing film too. There’s probably not a positive way to tell this story–Che goes to Bolivia and gets killed–but Soderbergh spends the film’s running time (it’s a breezy two hours ten, moves beautifully, probably because the scenes usually are identified with their respective time in relation to the start of the picture) whacking the viewer over the head with bleakness.

The film opens with the kind of text crawl George Lucas would lust for if he cared about doing a good text crawl, then there’s a beautiful televised Castro address on Che’s situation (Soderbergh films the Castro of the first part, Demián Bichir, discreetly, like they didn’t get him back for Part Two). It’s a simple shot of a television playing the address. It’s just great, really implying Soderbergh’s going to be a lot more visually inventive in Che: Part Two than he was in the first part. Fast forward… he isn’t. Che: Part Two is an entirely different film from the first one (not releasing them with their less interlaced titles would have been a fine move… but Part Two is different enough Del Toro didn’t even, necessarily, have to come back for it).

There’s some beautiful shots as Del Toro arrives, in a wonderful disguise, in Bolivia and finds his way out into the wilderness. But the Bolivian countryside is not a good looking place. Soderbergh got Peter Andrews to shoot it grey. The jungles appear devoid of life. The farmers Del Toro and his comrades encounter seem beyond poverty… nothing could grow in Che‘s Bolivia. Not even a revolution.

Che: Part Two‘s a constant downer, as it’s a film about failure. Che goes to Bolivia to inspire a revolution but he can’t. Revolutions, it would seem, can’t be exported. The film’s barely about Che. After opening in a manner to suggest a deeply introspective examination, Soderbergh immediately pulls back. Instead of following Del Toro around, Part Two splits its attention between the government response to Che (they call the United States, who are all too happy to supply military advisors) and the various members of Che’s small group. Franka Potente–identifiable, presumably, because she’s the only woman in the cast, not because she’s a recognizable film personality–gets one group, then some other guys get emphasis. Matt Damon shows up at one point, proving he’s definitely not Johnny Depp. It’s a distracting cameo.

When the film finally does return to Del Toro, it’s a little late. Del Toro doesn’t have much time and he does great work, but it’s not enough. Soderbergh, for the majority of Che: Part Two (or so it would seem, it moves so fast, it’s impossible to properly gauge the time without clocking it), creates this amazing war film. It’s this cat and mouse war movie, with Del Toro and his guerillas hunted by the numerically superior Bolivian army. Soderbergh creates all this sympathy for the supporting cast, just because they’re so terribly outnumbered.

Che: Part Two is a tad more political than the first installment. The Bolivian president–a fine, if underused, Joaquim de Almeida–is not a good guy. The Bolivian army is not good (and not just because they went after Butch and Sundance). Che: Part Two, at its best moments, is about someone so moved with his dream, he can’t see when the kindling’s failing to catch. The film’s a complete downer.

Lou Diamond Phillips is good in a small part. Alberto Iglesias’s music is fantastic.

It just doesn’t connect.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. van der Veen, based on a diary by Ernesto Guevara; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumárraga; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designers, Antxón Gómez and Philip Messina; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; released by IFC Films.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara), Carlos Bardem (Moisés Guevara), Demián Bichir (Fidel Castro), Joaquim de Almeida (President René Barrientos), Pablo Durán (Pacho), Eduard Fernández (Ciro Algarañaz), Marc-André Grondin (Régis Debray), Óscar Jaenada (Darío), Kahlil Mendez (Urbano), Cristian Mercado (Inti), Jordi Mollà (Captain Mario Vargas), Gastón Pauls (Ciros Bustos), Antonio Peredo (Coco), Jorge Perugorría (Joaquin), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mario Monje), Franka Potente (Tania), Othello Rensoli (Pombo), Armando Riesco (Benigno), Néstor Rodulfo (Miguel), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Aleida March), Norman Santiago (Tuma), Rodrigo Santoro (Raul Castro), Mark Umbers (George Roth) and Yul Vazquez (Alejandro Ramírez).

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Che: Part One (2008, Steven Soderbergh)

There’s a majesty to Che: Part One, the endless, blue Puerto Rican (I think) sky standing in for Cuba. Soderbergh loves that sky. Soderbergh’s Panavision frame doesn’t allow for much in the way of lyricism–I think the first shot of that nature comes in the last twenty minutes of the film. It’s a great looking film throughout, but Soderbergh lets the subject matter control the viewer’s perception. When he finally does throw in this wonderfully composed shot, it gives the viewer pause, reminding him or her it’s just a filmic narrative.

It should be hard to forget Che‘s a narrative–Soderbergh applies some of those masterful filmic pseudo-non-fiction skills he used in Traffic (to a similarly dispassionate result)–since it opens in a rather traditional manner. A (temporarily) unseen Julia Ormond is interviewing Benicio Del Toro about the early days of the Cuban Revolution, the planning days, and–on cue–the film flashes back. This interview–Ormond finally shows up visually following her introduction in the regular narrative–frames the entire film. It’s a traditional move and probably not a good one. Che‘s an epic biopic–it’s essentially the Lawrence of Arabia treatment, if a tad shorter–it doesn’t do anything to break the format. Like most biopics, Che keeps the viewer outside Che’s head. Del Toro gives a great performance, especially since his character is the least dynamic in the entire film.

Che’s a passive character in the film, certainly not as charismatic as Demián Bichir’s Castro. Del Toro infuses the character with a righteousness–there’s never a moment of doubt the man isn’t fully committed to doing what he says. I’d heard the film doesn’t paint Che in a positive light, but I must have had water in my ears. Soderbergh and screenwriter Peter Buchman tell the film from a viewpoint where there’s no way not to see Che as a hero. Che: Part One‘s Communist propaganda to be sure–it’s no wonder it didn’t get a real American distributor–but it’s impossible to imagine it told in any other way. The only time the film ducks out on any responsibility is in terms of Che’s marriage. There’s a big, “I’m married,” revelation scene with adoring revolutionary Catalina Sandino Moreno… immediately followed with Del Toro flirting with her every few minutes. It’s a cheap move–the film goes far to avoid giving too much background on Che, instead letting Del Toro do incredibly heavy lifting creating the character with little story support–the scenes where he’s acting as a physician are incredible, since this element’s introduced early on, so watching the soldier back down in an internal struggle to the physician… it’s lovely.

Soderbergh hasn’t fired Peter Andrews yet and Andrews’s cinematography is beautiful. It’s not just that blue sky, it’s the lush greenness. The last quarter or so of the film is a big urban battle sequence and it’s absolutely amazing. Che‘s never really a war movie, but Soderbergh’s direction of the city-set battle is peerless.

The film’s got a large cast and lots of characters have nicknames, lots have distinctive physical characteristics (so the viewer can recognize them immediately). At times, it feels as though Che wouldn’t be about Che if the film didn’t have the framework (there’s more than the interview, it also covers Che at the United Nations). The film doesn’t do anything to lionize the character in a general sense (it’s impossible to reconcile that iconic image of Che with Del Toro’s creation)–he’s a hero, but because of the way the film’s story is told.

Soderbergh films like Che: Part One always make me forget he’s capable of real emotional depth. It seems like he reserves such explorations of the human condition for his lower budgeted projects. I wish, just once, he’d try the reverse.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Peter Buchman, based on a memoir by Ernesto Guevara; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumárraga; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designer, Antxón Gómez; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; released by IFC Films.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara), Demián Bichir (Fidel Castro), Santiago Cabrera (Camilo Cienfuegos), Vladimir Cruz (Ramiro Valdés Menéndez), Alfredo De Quesada (Israel Pardo), Jsu Garcia (Jorge Sotus), Kahlil Mendez (Leonardo Tamayo Núñez), Elvira Mínguez (Celia Sánchez), Andres Munar (Joel Iglesias Leyva), Julia Ormond (Lisa Howard), Jorge Perugorría (Vilo), Édgar Ramírez (Ciro Redondo García), Victor Rasuk (Rogelio Acevedo), Othello Rensoli (Pombo), Armando Riesco (Benigno), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Aleida March), Roberto Santana (Juan Almeida), Norman Santiago (Tuma), Rodrigo Santoro (Raúl Castro), Unax Ugalde (Vaquerito), Roberto Urbina (Guile Pardo) and Yul Vazquez (Alejandro Ramirez).

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The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer)

Seeing as how The Usual Suspects popularized the major twist ending–that contrivance having now plagued American cinema for the last dozen years–it’s interesting to see it again. I haven’t seen the film in years (probably ten, at least nine), but I remember the last time I watched it, I thought about what was true and what probably wasn’t. Most twist ending (or late revelation and eureka moment endings)–it’s stunning how Shyamalan stole his standard part and parcel from Singer’s approach here–have clues, easter eggs, whatever. The Usual Suspects has a couple, but given the narrative’s layering, it’s impossible to know what’s true and what isn’t. So The Usual Suspects becomes the crash test dummy for whether a twist ending narrative can survive after countless viewings (well, not countless… I’m almost positive this viewing was my fourth).

And it can. At least, The Usual Suspects can.

There’s that beautiful combination of script and direction here, there’s Kevin Pollak’s jokes and Giancarlo Esposito’s hat. There’s the film’s roaming protagonist (Gabriel Bryne, Chazz Palminteri and Kevin Spacey all wear the hat). Singer’s composition is precise, each shot–in no small part due to cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel–has a unpretentious gravitas. The Usual Suspects‘s greatest achievement is Singer’s direction. He makes the film interesting to watch no matter what the content may be, which is where the script becomes so important.

There are “clues” throughout the film as to the twist ending, but the clues are only for to spin the viewer’s wheels (there’s no truth in any of them), making the relationship between the film and the viewer analogous to the relationship between Spacey and Palminteri. Storyteller and listener. Taken on its own, The Usual Suspects would suggest the possibilities for films with twist endings, the freedoms they can have, their advantages over traditional narratives. Unfortunately, even with good films with twist endings, no one’s really had the same success (Singer certainly did not with his subsequent feature, Apt Pupil).

Christopher McQuarrie’s script, which is so lauded for putting in the clues, is far more successful in its successful use of narration on a modern film and dialogue. McQuarrie’s dialogue is at times both stylized and not, with the title softening the informed viewer to it. Actually, the thing about the title in relation to the film is Humphrey Bogart could have, at different points in his career, played every one of the five main characters.

The long-term effect of The Usual Suspects, besides kicking off the big twist ending (and the handling of the revelation) phenomenon, is the actors. While Stephen Baldwin never did anything good again (his fine performance here is nothing but a–willful–imitation of brother Alec) and Suspects is one of Gabriel Byrne’s finest hours in his hit and miss career, it did introduce popular audiences to Kevin Spacey and everyone to Benicio Del Toro. Spacey immediately took off while Del Toro had to make it through a some bad pictures. Spacey’s excellent, not yet even aware he’d someday have a best actor rote; his delivery of McQuarrie’s narration is what makes it work. He has the hardest job, because he has to sell the twist ending’s revelation throughout. He has to make it seem possible. Kevin Pollak turns in the second strongest performance (after Spacey).

The Usual Suspects is about to turn thirteen (a few days before I turn thirty) and, while I can lament how Singer went nowhere artistically (the possessive use of his credit in the titles is strangely spectacular), it’s not a film to be discounted or dismissed as fanboy fodder. There’s just too much cinematic substance.

License to Kill (1989, John Glen)

Occasionally, I feel like the English language doesn’t allow for–without a lot of adjectives–a reasonable description of something. In this case, I can’t possibly describe the heights of stupidity License to Kill’s screenplay reaches. I mean, for a film to feature a South American drug kingpin with a base more appropriate for Dr. No, it has to be pretty stupid. But for it to feature a chemistry-free, love-at-first-sight romance (between Dalton and Carey Lowell, whose character is terribly written and whose performance is nowhere near as bad as Talisa Soto’s) after a bar fight… it’s simply incredible. The “modernizing” of the Bond villain to the drug kingpin is ludicrous, even if Robert Davi has some good moments, really good ones, but to throw people to leftover sharks from Jaws: The Revenge….

License to Kill is so dumb, I forgot to open this post with the line I’ve been waiting to use–my friend refers to License to Kill as James Bond’s Lethal Weapon. Between Michael Kamen doing the music and Grand L. Bush having a thankless, minuscule role, it really is an attempt to Americanize James Bond and it’s a failure. John Glen doesn’t get how to do action scenes or fight scenes. He gets how to do great special effects scenes–or the second unit director does–but otherwise, Glen is a liability to a ultra-violent Bond film. I mean, Bond’s not just killing people in this one, he’s torturing them.

The setup with Bond in Florida for Felix Leiter’s wedding, not to mention giving him friends, really does work. It works so well, I forgot it was Priscilla Barnes (she’s okay–her character is apparently a complete drunk–but a “Three’s Company” connection is a little distracting). But everything falls apart when, instead of killing all the bad guys, Bond makes off in a hydroplane in a well-executed special effects and stunts sequence. The writers don’t get it, the director doesn’t get it… Dalton barely gets it.

Dalton’s performance as Bond is quite good, creating a character who can believably have friends as well as everything else (though he does not come off as irresistible, something the script requires of him). Desmond Llewelyn has a lot to do as Q becomes a field agent and he’s a lot of fun–even if he is a little odd in the otherwise dark story. Wayne Newton’s fantastic as a televangelist in an overblown cameo.

As a tonal shift, License to Kill is a mistake (the script belongs in a direct-to-video movie from the early 1990s, starring a soap star who thought it’d be his breakout role), as is setting the film in the United States. It’s over two hours, but it’s boring… it’s nice Dalton can pull off a boring James Bond and it’s too bad he didn’t make more… but what’s the point? It doesn’t work as action adventure and it doesn’t work as revenge action.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by John Glen; written by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum, based on characters created by Ian Fleming; director of photography, Alec Mills; edited by John Grover; music by Michael Kamen; production designer, Peter Lamont; produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Wilson; released by United Artists.

Starring Timothy Dalton (James Bond), Carey Lowell (Pam Bouvier), Robert Davi (Franz Sanchez), Talisa Soto (Lupe Lamora), Anthony Zerbe (Milton Krest), Frank McRae (Sharkey), David Hedison (Felix Leiter), Wayne Newton (Professor Joe Butcher), Benicio Del Toro (Dario), Anthony Starke (Truman-Lodge), Everett McGill (Ed Killifer), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Pedro Armendáriz Jr. (President Hector Lopez), Robert Brown (M), Priscilla Barnes (Della Churchill), Don Stroud (Heller), Caroline Bliss (Miss Moneypenny), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Kwang) and Grand L. Bush (Hawkins).

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Sin City (2005, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez), the extended version

When Sin City came out in the theater, three people told me to go see it. One of them had an opinion of film I respect, one had an opinion of it I–at the time–had no argument with, and one had an opinion I most definitely did not respect. But I’d read interviews with Robert Rodriguez where he said he intended the films to be viewed as separate stories (much like Pulp Fiction, which is Sin City‘s obvious inspiration–at least in terms of casting). One of the Weinstein Brothers, I believe, convinced Rodriguez the film’s audience were essentially dumb and couldn’t handle the stories separate, so spliced together they went. So I waited for the special edition DVD, which has all three films in their entirety….

Unlike Pulp Fiction, which has three stories and shared characters, Sin City isn’t the same movie from part to part. Rodriguez was never a particularly intelligent filmmaker, something Tarantino always has been. In fact, reading on IMDb that it was Tarantino’s idea for Clive Owen to talk his monologue–truly the best moment in the film–makes a lot of sense now. I thought it was just a moment of the comic book that wasn’t tripe.

I actually have a bunch of notes on Sin City, because some of the acting was so awful I had to make a list. Here’s the list, with some comments.

Elijah Wood. He doesn’t have any lines, but he doesn’t have a bad-ass, or even psycho scare. His casting is a goofy, poor choice. All Sin City proved was that he shouldn’t have made it past child acting, which Ash Wednesday already did.

Rosario Dawson is AWFUL.

So is Rutger Hauer.

So is Jessica Alba (in the cameo during Marv’s story).

Benicio Del Toro was laughingly bad. So was Brittany Murphy, but she was irritating. Watching Del Toro in Sin City is like… try to imagine Robert DeNiro as Robin (as an eleven year-old). It’s embarrassing. The Del Toro/Murphy scene is actually painful. A lot of the acting in Sin City is like it–it’s unbelievable that Rodriguez expects it to be taken seriously and not as a bad imitation of a car commercial.

Alexis Bledel–awful. She might give the worst female performance.

Michael Madsen is astoundingly bad. I always used to–when I was a teenager–confuse him with Tom Sizemore. The difference is not that Sizemore is good (he’s better than good), but that he’s actually capable of acting. Madsen isn’t.

Now, on to the good performances. Anyone turning in a good performance in this film must be amazing. The dialogue is so piss poor, they have to be.

Both Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton are good in their little intro sequence (Hartnett probably has the easiest time with the narration, because his is the shortest and, therefore, the best).

Mickey Rourke is fantastic, but the makeup is a bad idea. The whole “translation” of the comic book idea is stupid (and certainly testifies to Rodriguez’s inherent limitations). The comic book is not perfect–the writing is occasionally all right, but most of the dialogue and narration is awful. Miller simply isn’t very good, on page or screen. Rourke manages to convey real emotion, even with his face in plastic.

Clive Owen is excellent.

Tommy Flanagan (the guy with the scar) or Nick Stahl give the best performances in the film.

Jaime King is actually all right. Maybe even good.

The Willis narration ruins the sequence, because it doesn’t give him a chance to act. Jessica Alba was nowhere near as bad (just mediocre really) as I was lead to believe, mostly because her character does absolutely nothing. Some of the Willis stuff looks real good, but that narration just kills it. Miller’s narration makes an attempt at Chandler, but it’s a poor one. He misses Chandler’s point. Its characterizations are from a B film noir–a bad one–not Chandler. Not even Hammett. It’s like he’s heard some hackneyed detective narration on a sitcom….

The special effects–the “sets” and “locations”–occasionally work, but they mimic reality, but don’t seem to intend to–so when something is incredibly unreal, it sticks out. Like cars. Amusingly, the visual design (from Miller’s comic) has cops out of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, with full body armor, driving old cop cars to fit in with the 1950s motif.

I actually didn’t dislike Sin City. It’s certainly the best comic book movie in the last few years (since Hellboy, I suppose, then all the way back to Batman Returns or something). It’s just not very good–it’s like Pulp Fiction, but with a bunch of actors from the WB. There’s rarely any real human emotion to it and there’s a constant attempt to be “cool.” Pulp Fiction had some similar aspirations, but it was also about wanting to screw your boss’s wife, which is a layer Sin City doesn’t have. All of its characters, for the “noirish” dialogue (out of the missing Don Knotts adaptation–sorry, translation–of The Big Sleep), all of them talk straight from id. There’s no nuance. But it’s hard to dislike just because it isn’t a real movie. It’s not a serious attempt at anything. American Pie 2 is a more serious study of the human heart in conflict with itself.

Sin City is a comic book movie and I’m using comic book as a pejorative there….