"She smells like angels ought to smell." -Marv

2005 was a crazy year for me. I mean, I didn't wake up next to any dead strippers like Marv from Sin City, but life got in the way of me seeing Sin City in the cinema. While I had some of the original Dark Horse Presents issues chronicling Sin City's initial appearances, and had bought a couple of the trade paperbacks, it wasn't until Christmas of 2005 that I was able to see the film translation on DVD. Needless to say I was blown away at this most true comic book movie of all time. It's stark black and whites broken only occasionally by accent colors or the full color seen in Kadie's bar showed what a comic noir film could be.

Sin City features four of Sin City's intertwined stories that take place in and around Basin City:

"The Customer is Always Right" features Josh Hartnett (30 Days of Night) as the Salesman, and Marley Shelton (Death Proof, Planet Terror) as the Customer, whose purchase is death.

"That Yellow Bastard" features Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-4, The Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense) as retiring police officer John Hartigan who on the eve of his retirement, goes to save eleven year old Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba – Dark Angel, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer) from being raped and murdered by Senator Roark's (Powers Boothe – Deadwood, Justice League)son, Roark Junior (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Carnivàle). Hartigan is betrayed by his bought-off partner but manages to shoot the junk off Roark Junior. Hartigan is gunned down by his corrupt partner, but is this the end or just the beginning?

"The Hard Goodbye" features Mickey Rourke (9 1/2 Weeks, Wild Orchid, The Wrestler, Iron Man 2) as Marv, a paladin of virtue in the dirty corrupt world of Sin City. Marv wakes up next to the slain Goldie, whose twin sister Wendy (Jaime King – The Spirit, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) initally believes was killed by Marv, but eventually the two find the real killers, cannibals Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner, Smallville, Batman Begins) and silent assassin Kevin (Elijah Wood – Lord of the Rings 1-3, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Happy Feet) . This story ends in tragedy, as Marv is put to the electric chair for not only killing the killers and their corrupt protectors, but also falsely for killing the innocents he was avenging.

"The Big Fat Kill" features Clive Owen (The Bourne Identity, Shoot 'Em Up) as Dwight, a man whose gallantry in protecting his girlfriend Shellie (Brittany Murphy – Happy Feet, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs) from her ex "Jackie Boy" (Benicio Del Toro – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Traffic) sets off a chain of events that threatens to lead to a war between the prostitutes that rule Old Town and the police. The prostitutes include Gail (Rosario Dawson – Men In Black II, Clerks 2, Death Proof), Miho (Devon Aoki – 2 Fast 2 Furious, Mutant Chronicles), and Becky (Alexis Bledel – Gilmore Girls). After the death of Jackie Boy, they find out he was a police detective and seek to hide the body, while Manute (Michael Clarke Duncan – The Scorpion King, Daredevil, Kung Fu Panda) and his mercenaries want evidence that the prostitutes killed Jackie Boy. This story only gets more violent from there and ends in the only place it could: a bloodbath.

Special Features:
This release is almost the Blu-ray version of the Sin City Recut • Extended • Unrated Edition There are a few changes, perhaps the most conspicuous being the lack of a mini-trade paperback and the addition of the digital comic instead. While both "Recut • Extended • Unrated" editions are extremely well filled out with a comic noir strip club full of sexy extras, perhaps the most appealing is the fact that we've finally got the extended version of this masterpiece on Blu-ray, meaning we've got it with the sharpest 1080p video available and Dolby Digital DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound.

Oh, but you want to know what the actual special features are? As a combo they're the Special Features equivalent of a nice coat, your favorite booze, and a lapdance from Jessica Alba. Take a look…

Extras Disc One – Restored Theatrical Version:

• Cine-Explore – Blu-ray Exclusive
• Commentary with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller
• Commentary with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
• Audio Track featuring a recording of the Austin audience reaction – (really? this seems to be patting itself on the back a bit too hard.)

Extras Disc Two – Recut, Extended, Unrated Version:

• Kill 'Em Good interactive Comic Book – This is a BD exclusive and worth the price of admission if you're into digital comics.
• Rodriguez Special Features:
  • -15 Minute Film School
  • -All Green-Screen Version
  • -The Long Take
  • -Sin City Live in Concert
  • -10-Minute Cooking School
• How it Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to Make the Film
• Special Guest Director Quentin Tarantino
• A Hard Top with a Decent Engine: The Cars of Sin City
• Booze, Broads, and Guns: The Props of Sin City
• Making the Monsters: Special Effects Makeup
• Trench Coats and Fishnets: The Costumes of Sin City
• Teaser and Theatrical Trailers

Overall:
While 2008's The Spirit tried to recapture the comic book noir magic that was Sin City, it seemed too hokey to be accepted as a real successor to the legacy that Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez established. Luckily, the team is returning to Sin City with two more features: Sin City 2 and 3 will reportedly feature the stories "A Dame to Kill For" and "Hell and Back" respectively.

Sin City is what happens when movie makers take film and successfully give it the look and feel of a Frank Miller comic book. It's a proof-of-concept fan film made real, made with a full budget, and made right. In the middle of the comic book movie era, Sin City still stands out 4 years later as the one to beat if you are serious about translating a comic into film. While films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight are strong contenders for best comic film to date, can we really say that they translate the source material as successfully as Sin City?

ComicsOnline gives Sin City 5 out of 5 accent splashes of color across a perfectly rendered black and white landscape of sin.