No gray areas in “Sin City”

• ***1/2

Comics have provided moviemakers with some of the most visually exciting films to make it to the big screen in the past thirty or so years. Overloaded with gobs of art direction and set design, films like “Batman” and “The Crow” proved that there was something to the expressive drawings of these artists.

One of those legendary doodler’s works is now bigger than life, and a whole lot more violent.

Frank Miller’s “Sin City” is a stark and brilliant ride through a noir landscape of nastiness. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, a legend himself, and known for such films as “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “El Mariachi,” and “Spy Kids”, the faithful panel-by-panel rendering of Miller’s series of dark drawings is a jolting experience.

Co-directed with Miller, “Sin City” takes the viewer on a close-up tour of Basin City where some of the roughest of comic characters live and breathe. There’s Marv, played by Mickey Rourke, a gargoyle of a man who kills at will, but has a soft spot for an exotic dancer named Goldie. There’s also Hartigan played by Bruce Willis, a good cop about to retire except that he has to go through Hell first and help a little girl named Nancy. Throw in Clive Owen as Dwight, a photographer who is out to protect yet another woman from a psychotic cop played by Benicio del Toro and you have most of the story line of this flick.

Plenty of gravelly-throated narrative links the plots together in a visual style that seems to ooze black ink. Occasional elements such as blood or a woman’s dress glow with color to emphasize the action and give the movie a look of its own. Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer and even Elijah Wood make cameo appearances, all of them wonderfully unlikable characters. Wood’s cannibalistic Kevin is one of the highlights of the story. This is a strange netherworld of a movie, but it packs a punch that will send you flying through the back wall of the theatre.

The audience for the matinee I attended was mostly guys, college age and older, although there were a couple of teenage boys with their fathers. This is a movie for guys who like movies. It’s not a date movie by any means, unless you are going out with a really tough dame.

Ultra-violent, darkly funny, and hugely entertaining, “Sin City” has finally made it OK to head back to the theatres this spring. This is one film worth plopping down your eight bucks. Although not without a couple of minor problems, Michael Madsen’s phoned-in performance for one, the overall experience is exhilarating.

Not since Daniel Clowe’s “Ghost World” have I seen a comic or graphic novel so faithfully brought to life. Clowe’s world may be a totally different universe than the perpetual night of Miller’s universe, but it’s another example of the wealth of imagination and character being portrayed by a genre not often given the respect it deserves.

Neither for the squeamish nor the prudish, just keep telling yourself, “It’s only a comic book. It’s only a comic book.”