While he’s occasionally been overshadowed by friend and fellow auteur Quentin Tarantino, director Robert Rodriguez continues to impress as not only a great visual storyteller but also someone who has become a “jack of all trades” when it comes to cinematic projects. Since arriving on the scene with his famously low-budget El Mariachi in 1992, Rodriguez has also become something of a maverick innovator known for delivering projects on time and under budget — often by multi-tasking as writer, director, cinematographer, editor and composer, among other duties. As such, he’s become one of the biggest proponents of digital technology, having gravitated toward this more immediate and economic approach to feature filmmaking out of necessity. His groundbreaking work on the profitable and popular Spy Kids series only helped cement his reputation as a talented director who can deliver the goods. So when it was announced that he would be adapting Frank Miller’s hallowed Sin City graphic novels as a major motion picture, I knew it was the perfect marriage of visionary comic legend with stylish and innovative movie director.

For years it was a combination of Miller’s own reluctance to allow his revered film noir tales to be made into movies and an obvious lack of technology to remain faithful to the graphic novels’ high contrast, black-and-white look that precluded any potential adaptations since the first in the series of books appeared in 1991. But having cut his teeth on advancements in both digital post-production technology and state-of-the-art, high-definition video cameras, Rodriguez — who was also an avid fan of Miller’s work — was able to finally convince the author that he could effectively translate his material into the film medium while remaining wholly faithful to the author’s original vision. After a bit of arm-twisting and a remarkably convincing short film test — which became the opening introduction to the feature-length project — Miller agreed to not only allow Rodriguez to make a film based on four of his dark stories, but also to serve alongside him as co-director. Thus, the long-awaited movie version of Frank Miller’s Sin City was born and released in 2005.

Sin City is basically an anthology film combining three of Miller’s stories — “That Yellow Bastard,” “The Hard Goodbye” and “The Big Fat Kill,” all bookended by the short hit-man story “The Customer is Always Right.” Given that some of the characters in Miller’s fascinating world sometimes cross over into other tales, Rodriguez has wisely taken a page from his pal Tarantino and opted to eschew the standard linear plotline and tell the stories in bite-sized chunks, out-of-sequence. The film opens with the nameless hit-man (Josh Hartnett) seducing his latest victim (Marley Shelton) on the balcony of an apartment building. Keeping true to Miller’s Raymond Chandler-inspired narration, Hartnett does a voiceover worthy of Bogart in explaining how he’s about to dispatch this job-for-hire. After the opening credits we’re treated to the beginning of “That Yellow Bastard,” wherein a cop named Hartigan (Bruce Willis) is racing to stop a crazed serial killer known as Junior (Nick Stahl) from raping and killing an 11-year-old girl named Nancy Callahan. Arriving at a dockside warehouse, Hartigan meets up with his partner Bob (Michael Madsen), who attempts to convince him to leave since Junior’s father is apparently a wealthy and influential senator in Basin City (aka “Sin City”). Hartigan manages to find Nancy and Junior and even manages to seriously wound the would-be molester before Bob shoots Hartigan, leaving his partner for dead.

Next we meet a hulking brute named Marv (Mickey Rourke), star of “The Hard Goodbye,” who’s just enjoyed a night of drunken passion with a goddess named Goldie (Jaime King) when things go all wrong. He wakes up to find Goldie has been murdered while lying beside him and the police are already on their way. Marv realizes he’s been framed and since he’s out on parole, he won’t go down without a fight. He makes a swift and violent getaway from the cops and tracks down his parole officer Lucille (Carla Gugino), who gives him some medication to calm him while she tries to sort things out. But Marv does a little detective work on his own and finds out that Goldie was a prostitute known for servicing the clergy of Basin City. He further learns that the influential Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer) and a deranged cannibalistic killer named Kevin (Elijah Wood) are behind Goldie’s murder. Marv ventures out to the Roark family farm and encounters the silent but deadly Kevin, who overpowers him and locks him inside a room with Lucille, who’s also been captured. Pointing to a row of women’s heads mounted on the wall, Lucille explains to Marv how Kevin keeps those as trophies but eats the rest of his victims. Marv and Lucille manage to bust out before Kevin returns, but Lucille is gunned down by police as they attempt to escape from the farm.

Meanwhile, Marv keeps seeing a woman who looks like Goldie following him. The woman turns out to be Goldie’s sister, Wendy, who is just as anxious to find out who killed her. With help from a group of Basin City prostitutes, Wendy interrogates Marv, believing he’s the one responsible for Goldie’s death. Satisfied that he’s been set up, Wendy agrees to help him get revenge. They both return to the Roark farm and Marv once again encounters Kevin — only this time he’s better-prepared. He handcuffs himself to the stealth-like predator … then proceeds to dismember him, leaving his remains to be eaten by Kevin’s pet wolf. Marv then decapitates Kevin and takes his head to Cardinal Roark, with the full intent of doing the same to him. As Marv is about to finish off the Cardinal, however, the police arrive and he’s arrested and accused of not only killing Kevin and Cardinal Roark, but also Lucille, Goldie and the other girls found on the farm. Marv is sentenced to die in the electric chair, but not before Wendy visits him on death row to thank him for avenging Goldie’s death. Marv goes to the electric chair, proudly knowing that he did right by both Goldie and Wendy.

The third story, “The Big Fat Kill,” begins with Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro) harassing his girlfriend Shellie (Brittany Murphy) about letting him and his drunken friends into her apartment. Shellie is in a bind, however, since she’s just spent the night with Dwight (Clive Owen) who is still in the apartment. Once Jackie Boy barges in, Dwight decides he’s going to teach him a lesson about mistreating Shellie — he corners him in the bathroom and callously shoves his face into the toilet. Embarrassed, Jackie Boy and his gang make a swift departure, with Dwight hot on their heels. He tracks them down to Basin City’s “Old Town,” a section populated and run by the city’s prostitutes. When Jackie Boy pushes one of the girls a little too far, they kill him and his gang. But after checking his pockets Dwight learns that Jackie Boy is actually a Basin City cop … and if the police find out who’s responsible for his death, the girls of Old Town will no longer enjoy their police protection from the mob. As a favor to Gail (Rosario Dawson), the prostitute’s ringleader he once had a thing for, Dwight agrees to dispose of the bodies. But there’s a snitch among the ranks of Old Town and Dwight is ambushed by a group of mercenaries hoping to bring evidence of Jackie Boy’s death — to wit, his decapitated head — back to the mob. It takes some quick thinking and more than a little brute force on Dwight’s part to make things right between the cops, the mob and the girls of Old Town.

Returning to the “That Yellow Bastard” storyline, we learn that Hartigan miraculously survived his gunshot wounds and is now being framed by Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) for what he did to his son. Unwilling to give Nancy up, Hartigan goes to prison for molesting the 11-year-old. During his eight-year stint he receives frequent letters from Nancy, who uses a pen name so no one can find her. But when the letters suddenly stop, Hartigan assumes the worse. When an envelope arrives with a girl’s index finger inside, he agrees to confess to the crime he didn’t commit in order to get out on parole. He immediately tracks the 19-year-old Nancy (Jessica Alba) down … and realizes he’s been duped into leading Junior — now a deformed yellow freak after undergoing bizarre medical procedures — right to her. Although Junior manages to subdue Hartigan and kidnap Nancy, Hartigan escapes and tracks them both down to the notorious Roark farm where he again confronts Junior and once again manages to save Nancy from becoming his latest victim. The film closes with a brief coda from “The Customer is Always Right” wherein Becky (Alexis Bledel), the working girl from Old Town who ended up ratting out Dwight earlier, is seen leaving the hospital and meeting up with the nameless hit-man from the film’s introduction.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Simply put, this film looks stunning on BD. Only one other BD release has earned a perfect 10 in terms of offering a sharp, film-like video presentation — The Godfather Collection: The Coppola Restoration. The transfer on Sin City easily matches and maybe even surpasses that presentation in terms of detail and image reproduction. The film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio is presented in an outstanding high-definition transfer compressed with the AVC video CODEC. This is going to become one of those ideal demo discs you’ll want to pop into your Blu-ray player to show off your system. The film’s amazing high-contrast black-and-white photography, coupled with the spot instances of color, really make the most of the high-definition format. Given that the film in just barely four years old and was shot and edited on state-of-the-art high-definition video, it looks impeccable on BD with nary a blemish, speckle or spot of film grain to speak of. This movie is pure eye-candy to begin with, and it only looks better on Blu-ray. Having seen the movie previously in theaters and on standard DVD, I don’t think it’s ever looked this sharp and vibrant. Black levels — one of Miller’s trademarks — remain deep, dark and inky while Rodriguez’s sparing use of color helps to make characters and objects literally pop off the screen. Even the subtle shades of grayscale take on a new dimension in this transfer. Color balance is also spot on and subtle hues such as the slightest hint of color photography employed during the Kadie’s barroom sequence provide additional warmth. From the salt-and-pepper whiskers on Hartigan’s weathered face to the wrinkled lines in Marv’s furrowed brow to the intricate fishnet design in Gail’s skimpy outfit, every line and detail in every frame of this movie stands out like the original hand-drawn panels of Miller’s graphic novels. Needless to say, there were no signs of compression artifacts or digital enhancement. Overall, a flawless reference-quality video presentation.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Disney scores again with a top-tier 24-bit lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that perfectly complements the amazing video presentation. This is an active, aggressive and ambient surround track that provides constant discrete content to the front stereo, rear surround and center channels. Everything sounds natural and organic in this audio mix. The dynamic range is off the charts with deep, rumbling bass notes pumping through the subwoofer and clean, distinct high-end through the front and center mix. Nothing here sounds canned or processed and everything — from the stirring score to the frequent blast of gunshots to the twangy guitar music inside Kadie’s barroom — is well-placed and faithfully reproduced within the six-channel matrix. Dialogue always remains crisp and clear through the center channel mix while the front and surround channels are kept busy with both a barrage of sound effects and the film’s underlying score. Like its video counterpart, this is an impeccable, reference-quality audio presentation.

The optional subtitles are in English SDH and Spanish.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

As if the stellar video and audio presentations weren’t enough to lure in fans of the movie, Disney also loads the BD with plenty of original and unique bonus material beginning with a feature-length running audio commentary track with co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller that is engaging, informative and very entertaining. It’s apparent that the formerly aloof Miller has taken a shine to Rodriguez and has learned to appreciate the film medium he once viewed with suspicion. Miller and Rodriguez make a great co-directing team, and Rodriguez is to be applauded for sacrificing his Directors Guild of America (DGA) status in order to get the “co-directing” credit for Miller on the film. Time and again, Rodriguez makes the salient point that Miller effectively directed these stories when he “storyboarded” them in his original graphic novels. Rodriguez simply came along with the technological background and cinematic skill to faithfully translate those drawings into film.

Next up is another audio commentary track with co-director Robert Rodriguez and “special guest director” Quentin Tarantino, who directed one sequence of the “The Big Fat Kill” portion of the movie — an amusing scene wherein the recently-deceased corpse of Jackie Boy starts talking to Dwight as he drives to dispose of the body. Rodriguez initially flies solo and then Tarantino joins in when “The Big Fat Kill” story begins. Although fun in spots, it’s not nearly as informative or interesting as the Rodriguez/Miller commentary and while I’m a big fan of Tarantino, he monopolizes the conversation and his incessant ranting and raving can become tiresome over the course of a two-hour movie. Although not cited, Bruce Willis makes a surprise appearance on this track as well, sharing his thoughts alongside Rodriguez during the final portion of “That Yellow Bastard.” It’s good to hear how supportive Willis is of the project and how impressed he is with the talents of everyone involved.

Another interesting plus is an audience reaction track of a screening of Sin City in Austin, Texas. This is exactly what you’d expect — an ambient surround aural representation of watching the film inside a theater packed with eager fans. Although there are long stretches of silence, it’s fun to hear the audience react when a character gets his comeuppance, or simply during the opening credits when certain names elicit louder applause. (For the record, both Benicio del Toro and Mickey Rourke seem to get the loudest responses.)

Clearly the most innovative and fascinating bonus feature exclusive to Blu-ray is the Cine-Explore picture-in-picture function which, when activated, provides a myriad of picture-in-picture images during the film proper that show how a certain scene looked in color, against a green screen or, alternately, in Miller’s original graphic novel. And unlike Universal’s U-Control picture-in-picture feature which I’ve grown to loathe, here the main image shifts from the final theatrical version of a scene to the graphic novel, or effects shot, or pre-production video; so the pertinent information isn’t consistently relegated to the smaller box at the corner of the screen. Sometimes you see the full-sized green-screen effect, sometimes it’s Miller’s drawings, and so on. This feature provides great insight into how the story evolved from Miller’s pen to Rodriguez’s interpretation to the finished concept.

The bulk of the remaining bonus features are included on the second disc in the two-disc set, which also offers the extended, unrated and recut 147-minute version of Sin City. This version adds about 22 minutes to the three main stories and allows you to view each of Frank Miller’s tales in chronological order including “That Yellow Bastard” (47 minutes), “The Customer is Always Right” (8 minutes), “The Hard Goodbye” (41 minutes) and “The Big Fat Kill” (45 minutes). While some of the restored footage is interesting, like most fans I still prefer the original theatrical version of the film, which plays better when told slightly out of sequence.

Kill ‘Em Good: Interactive Comic Book is an interactive comic book game of “The Hard Goodbye” story that allows you to control Marv making his getaway in a stolen cop car by using the left and right arrows on your remote control. It’s a bit cumbersome to operate and the game abruptly ends once you’ve crashed into a wall a couple of times. Far more interesting is the first of several featurettes titled How It Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to Make the Film (5:41). This is an all-too-brief look at how Rodriguez essentially stalked Miller into letting him have the rights to Sin City. In the end, his tenacity paid off, though. The more predictable Special Guest Director: Quentin Tarantino (7:13) featurette takes a look at Tarantino’s big day on the set, directing the aforementioned sequence with actors Benicio del Toro and Clive Owen. There are some interesting tidbits here, like how the actors reacted to having three directors on the set at once.

A Hard Top With a Decent Engine: The Cars of Sin City (7:34) is something of a throwaway piece looking at the various period and vintage automobiles they either bought or restored for the movie. Booze, Broads and Guns: The Props of Sin City (10:57) is a self-explanatory look at the fabricated props, production design work, and limited sets constructed for the movie — even though the vast majority of the backgrounds were added in post-production. Making the Monsters: Special Effects Make-Up (9:04) is a welcomed look at the underrated work of Greg Nicotero, who seems to have inherited the mantel of special makeup effects guru from the great Tom Savini. This segment goes into how he created all the elaborate and amazingly accurate makeup work for characters like Marv and That Yellow Bastard. Trench Coats and Fishnets: The Costumes of Sin City (7:34) takes a similar approach to the work of costume designer Nina Proctor, who had the daunting task of not only finding clothes to match Miller’s original vision but also making sure the material would photograph correctly in black-and-white.

In keeping with his previous video releases, Robert Rodriguez also offers several of his own signature special features, appropriately titled Rodriguez Special Features (58:00 aggregate), beginning with another chapter in his informative 15-Minute Film School series,a segment where he shows some of the behind-the-scenes tricks he used to make Sin City. The somewhat misleading All Green-Screen Version actually shows a sped-up, truncated version of scenes from the film as they looked in the pre-production “green screen” stage. This segment now seems redundant given the ample offering of similar green-screen shots in the Cine-Explore feature. The Long Take is an overlong examination of Tarantino’s 14-minute take of his “guest directorial” scene that lasts about five minutes in the finished film. Sin City: Live in Concert is a neat behind-the-scenes look at Bruce Willis performing with his band on the set during the shoot. Last, but not least, Ten-Minute Cooking School gives Rodriguez a chance to share another of his talents — a demonstration of how to make his own breakfast tacos.

Along with the original teaser (2:00) and original theatrical trailer (2:00) for Sin City, the disc also includes a generic Miramax Blu-ray promo, along with trailers for Lost: Season One, Lost: Season Two, The Proposal and Confessions of a Shopaholic. The BD is also encoded for the D-Box motion control system.

The 124-minute theatrical version is divided into twenty-eight chapters. The 147-minute unrated, recut and extended version is divided into four chapters — one for each of the individual stories.

Final Thoughts

A visually-stunning movie like Sin Citywas just tailor-made for the high-definition Blu-ray format. Disney has done fans of Robert Rodriguez’s amazing interpretation of Frank Miller’s dark, neo-noir graphic novels proud with this perfect, reference-quality BD release. With a sharp and detailed film-like video presentation, a full and ambient audio presentation, and an entertaining and informative collection of unique bonus material, Sin City easily earns a place as one of the best demo discs on the BD format to date and a must-have for your collection. Highly recommended.