3) Sin City (2005)
Let’s get back to talking about some good movies, shall we?
I rather like Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City adaption as a film itself, but I really admire the director’s wishes to stay faithful to black and white comic book pages. Understanding how to manipulate colors, like Frank Miller’s source material, Rodriguez utilizes the griminess of tainted darkness to really make certain colors (red and yellow specifically) pop off the screen. While comic book adaptations have since upped their game, watching Sin City for the first time presented this invigorated cinematic experience where a filmmaker actually devoured every morsel of source material, and created a better adaption for it.
Sin City is obviously a fictional location where crime rules all, but the overkill factor plays favorably into the hand of comic book adaptions. Thinking back to memorable scenes, I’ll never erase Kevin’s death from my mind as Elijah Wood stares blankly at Rodriguez’s camera, an experience highlighted by the black and white nature (see video below). Rodriguez has the ability to darken Wood’s face while whiting out his glasses, making more of a silhouette than actual human face. In the same breath, watching Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl) get beaten to a pulp, with yellow goo flying everywhere, highlights the overkill nature of gritty, violent comic books. You can get away with so much mature content in comics, which is something Rodriguez’s movies revel in.
Sin City is one of the definitive comic book adaptations if you’re talking visuals, looking like it’s torn directly from Miller’s graphic novels.