Sin City (2005) review.
The Robert Rodriguez adaptation of Frank Millerβs Sin City comics is often praised for its stylistic bravado, but reading the original strips next to the 2005 live action version shows how much nuance is lost in translation. The comics are over-the-top, noir-flavored, and every bit as cartoonish and violent as the most gruesome grindhouse horror film or madcap Warner Brothers shortβbut also deeply human and tied to the medium in ways the film flattens.
Take Marv. In the comics, heβs not just a hulking bruteβheβs a manchild. When we see him visiting home, his room is still set up like a little boyβs, with an airplane hanging from the ceiling and toys strewn about. These details are cut from the film but are crucial to understanding Marv's psychology.
Dialogue also clarifies his arrested development. In the film, Marv narrates that, βLucilleβs a dyke, though god knows why, with a body like that she could have any man she wants,β but in the comics, this is expanded to him outright saying this to her, and then being genuinely surprised when sheβs offended. He never brings it up again. This reveals Marv isnβt homophobicβhe just doesnβt understand social norms any more than a child would.
In the film, Marv is implied to be a virgin until Goldie sleeps with him. In both the film and the comic, he says that his face prevents him from even "buying a woman" but the more detailed psychological portrait that Frank Miller has time to paint in his chosen medium clarifies that itβs Marv's arrested development, not his looks, that prevent him from forming intimate relationships.
Marv is acutely aware of his limitations: heβs mentally disabled, yet self-aware enough to recognize those limits and work within them. This makes him both innocent and dangerous. Dwight compares Marv to a barbarian, but that's only half the story. Marv is a fusion of archetypesβon one hand, Conan the Barbarian, the embodiment of brute strength and relentless will; on the other, Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a childish fool whose naΓ―vetΓ© occasionally gives way to odd flashes of insight. By combining the epic hero with the cartoon simpleton, Miller creates a character who is at once mythic, absurd, and deeply human. That paradox is what makes Marv unforgettable.
Plot and character moments are also cut or diluted. In the comic, Hartiganβs wife offers to believe he didnβt molest Nancy, even offering support and help when she begins to suspect it is true. Hartigan says nothing, not even to her, because Senator Roark has threatened to kill Nancy if he doesnβt take the fall for Roark Juniorβsβaka, the Yellow Bastard'sβcrimes. This crucial scene is omitted in the film, in favor of a guest-directed scene from Quentin Tarantino, which adds little to The Big Fat Kill, the weakest story in both the early comics and this adaptation.
Dialogue works differently in animation or comics. Cartoonishly erudite henchmen, references to βbum tickers,β and over-the-top noir phrasing feel perfectly natural in a Looney Tunes short or EC comic book story, but can come across as silly or overwrought in live-action. Millerβs dialogue is part of the medium-specific charm.
Visually, the comicsβ use of colour is deliberate. Early storylines are entirely black-and-white, and when colour does eventually pop up in later volumes, it serves a specific purpose in what is otherwise a sea of monochrome. For example, in That Yellow Bastard, the titular antagonist is painted yellow to emphasize his grotesque parody of The Yellow Kid, one of the earliest American comic-strip characters, and the yellow pops to inspire revulsion.
While Miller never explicitly frames it as parody, the grotesque transformation of a classic cartoon icon into a child-killing monster prefigures todayβs wave of public-domain slashers, from Steamboat Willie: The Mouse Trap (2024) to Popeye: Shiver Me Timbers (2025). By recasting a familiar childhood favorite as a horror figureβand grounding this reimagining in the very medium the Yellow Kid originates fromβMiller achieved a resonance that cheap live-action cash-ins on newly public-domain animated characters cannot hope to match. His disciplined use of yellowβand only yellowβto define that character underscores the point with striking precision.
The film, by contrast, spreads colour throughout via selective greenscreens and CGI. Itβs a noveltyβturning live action into a βcartoon noirββbut it often feels gimmicky and dilutes the impact of Millerβs very specific colour keys. The high-contrast, often line-free shadows on white paper represent career-best work on the part of Frank Miller, and arguably some of the finest black-and-white comic art ever done period.
In short: the comics layer character, humor, and grotesque satire in ways the film flattens. Marvβs childlike intelligence, endearing innocence, and vulnerability are lost. Hartiganβs moral stakes are simplified. Colour and dialogue lose subtlety when translated to live action.
Sin City the movie is fun, visually striking, and a novel experiment in cinematic comic adaptation. But it misses the innovation and human depth that make the original comics enduringly remarkable.
