Sin City (Blu-ray) (2005)

Chicago Sun-Times
"[I]t's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids....It's a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant." 04/01/2005 p.29

Entertainment Weekly
"[A] jazzy-looking screen translation..." 04/08/2005 p.44-45

Uncut
"Rodriguez delivers a sumptuous computer-generated vision of Miller's hardboiled fantasy universe....A perfect slice of gleefully violent 21st-century film noir for sick, twisted pop culture aficionados everywhere." 06/01/2005 p.136-137

Rolling Stone
"Credit first goes to Robert Rodriquez, a tirelessly innovative director who thrives on doing things the rules say he can't....A bold, uncompromised vision." 04/21/2005 p.123

Sight and Sound
"SIN CITY is consistently gorgeous..." 06/01/2005 p.73-74

Premiere
"This was a groundbreaking movie for both its look and how that look was achieved." 09/01/2005 p.119

Movieline's Hollywood Life
"Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's all-digital uber-noir gets a blowout DVD-ing..." 11/01/2005 p.104

Uncut
Ranked #10 in Uncut's Best Films Of 2005 -- "Rodriguez creates a visual masterpiece, an entirely digital rendition of the comic-book world." 01/01/0206 p.82-83

Rolling Stone
Ranked #5 in Rolling Stone's "Top 25 DVDs Of 2005' -- "[T]he film captures the dazzling monochrome of Frank Miller's graphic novels." 12/01/2005 p.92

ReelViews 9 of 10
Sin City is the most visually inventive comic book adaptation to make its way to a movie screen. While other directors have attempted to remain faithful to the look and "feel" of their source material, Robert Rodriguez has taken things a step further, by using Frank Miller's graphic novels as storyboards and immersing the audience neck-deep in the noir currents of Miller's den of iniquity. It's easy to get lost in Sin City. There's something to appreciate around every corner - the gritty characters, the uncompromising story, and, most of all, visuals to astound and amaze. "Eye candy" doesn't even begin to describe what Rodriguez has accomplished...This is very much Rodriguez's film - like most of his other projects, it was "shot and cut" by him. He is quick to give Frank Miller equal credit, indicating that although the camerawork was his, Miller's contribution was so great that he deserves to be recognized as a co-director...Quentin Tarantino is listed as a "Special Guest Director," whatever that means. Apparently, Tarantino shot one (or more) of the film's scenes, but I couldn't begin to guess which one. Any contribution by the Kill Bill filmmaker blends seamlessly into the overall production, never calling attention to itself...Rumor has it that some of the studio executives behind Sin City were looking for a way to get the film a PG-13 rating. Having seen the final cut, it's mind-boggling to believe that such a watered-down version was ever considered. The violence in this movie may be stylized, but there's far too much of it for the MPAA to consider a PG-13. Plus, there's plenty of nudity: Jamie King bares her breasts and Carla Gugino spends about 50% of her limited screen time wearing little or nothing. I'm glad Rodriguez stuck to his guns; a PG-13 version of Sin City would have been a crime. The one that exists is a pleasure. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
If film noir was not a genre, but a hard man on mean streets with a lost lovely in his heart and a gat in his gut, his nightmares would look like "Sin City." The new movie by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller plays like a convention at the movie museum in Quentin Tarantino's subconscious. A-list action stars rub shoulders with snaky villains and sexy wenches, in a city where the streets are always wet, the cars are ragtops and everybody smokes. It's a black-and-white world, except for blood, which is red, eyes which are green, hair which is blond, and the Yellow Bastard...This isn't an adaptation of a comic book, it's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids...Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino are credited as co-directors, Miller because his comic books essentially act as storyboards which Rodriguez follows with ferocity, and because he was on the set every day, interacting with the actors; Tarantino because he directed one brief scene on a day when Rodriquez was determined to wean him away from celluloid and lure him over the dark side of digital. (It's the scene in the car with Owen and Del Toro, who has a pistol stuck in his head.) Tarantino also contributed something to the culture of the film, which follows his influential "Pulp Fiction" in its recycling of pop archetypes and its circular story structure. The language of the film, both dialogue and narration, owes much to the hard-boiled pulp novelists of the 1950s...Which brings us, finally, to the question of the movie's period. Skylines suggest the movie is set today. The cars range from the late 1930s through the 1950s to a recent Ferrari.The costumes are from the trench coat and G-string era. I don't think "Sin City" really has a period, because it doesn't really tell a story set in time and space. It's a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant. - Roger Ebert