Damn. Just ... damn.

Sin City, adapted from the graphic novels of the same name, keys on graphic, as in the violence is brutal, barbaric and savage, but �stylized.� Seriously, I'm totally desensitized to movie violence for the most part; Kill Bill volumes one and two didn't bother me one bit, but the critics' warnings are nothing to scoff at this time.

	Hold on ... stay still ... there's an eyelash on your cheek ...

Still, it�s the kind of merciless carnage where the audience (of males, obviously) is recoiling while clapping and yelling "whoa!" and "oooh!" and "holy cow!" and "daggum!" and "cool!" The humor isn't ha-ha, but "I can't believe I'm laughing at this." The audience needs a game controller because we might as well be watching a live-action version of Grand Theft Auto.

More reasoning for the strong R rating includes "sexual content including dialogue." I think that refers to all the "cut your balls off" comments. I'm pretty sure about that. Lots of talking about testes. It�s not all talk, either. There are at least four instances where men lose their genitals, sometimes more than once, via gunfire or an axe or by hand. Really grotesque and �ow� inspiring by the male audience members. Not even Gloria Steinem or any other feminazi could have written the de-penisfying any more gruesome.

Naturally, a movie called Sin City takes place in that hotbed of vice, Poughkeepsie.

No, not really. It's Generictown, U.S.A. There's a tar pit, and it snows, but there are palms, so clearly the filmmakers avoided pointing fingers at any particularly dreadful city. **coughCLEVELANDcough**

There are three stories that sorta kinda link together if only based in the same sordid city around the same sordid characters. The seven deadly sinners have names mostly recognizable like Bruce, Clive, Benecio, Elijah, Stahl, Rosario, Madsen, Mickey, Aoki, Hartnett and Rutger. (Okay, that's eleven, but I really wanted that analogy.)

In Cleveland Sin City, everyone's corrupt and lethal, there�s no shortage of vices to enjoy, and still Rodriguez and Miller can make you root for the right ones. Cops are dirty, the clergy is dirty, strippers are good girls and ladies of the night are heroic (if armed and dangerous) and politicians are crooked. (Well, okay, so that one fits our stereotypes.)

Director Robert Rodriguez compiled an impressive cast, because, come on, who can use Rutger Hauer for effect anymore?! Rodriguez makes Sin City by being a team player and letting creator Frank Miller have joint director status. Further, the cast is listed alphabetically in the credits, which sucks for Bruce Willis but is a great coup for sexpot Jessica Alba.

There were two bad casting decisions in allowing Brittany Murphy to infect the movie with her preening that�s the opposite of sexy no matter how much she shows her cleaveage, and Michael Madsen couldn�t even succeed in giving stilted dialogue when the part called for it. Dreadful. Since he�s in the first scene, I thought the entire movie was supposed to be performed dry and in stops-and-starts, but no, just Madsen. So don�t worry, when he�s not on the screen for the other 99 percent of the movie, it�s much better.

	Bruce turned in shame, realizing that after The Whole Ten Yards he could never please a woman again.

Elsewhere, Elijah Wood obliterates any idea of him being Frodo with this ultra-creepy cannibal character who wears a Charlie Brownish zigzag shirt, and John Conner (er, Nick Stahl of T3) becomes a skuzzy Gollum if Gollum was a sex fiend who got off on torturing little girls.

Hands down, however, the winner of the best character is Mickey Rourke as Marv, a modern gladiator who knocks guys through walls, drags baddies by the face on the ground while driving a speeding car, is run over three times and gets right up. He's a dangerous criminal, but in this movie's dogma he's a downright saint. After all, he won't touch a dame, and he's out to avenge an innocent woman's death. I want � no, DEMAND � a prequel story for Marv.

That's it! Gladiators! That's what this film is like, watching a no-holds-barred lions-against-prisoners spectacle in Roman coliseums. Am I not entertained? Yes I am! Cut his head off!

Rodriguez and Miller�s Sin City is heavy on presentation, with a film noir-ish black-and-white (colors shown rare and only to prove a point - usually blood or bright eyes). Even the black-and-white isn�t all shades of gray. The white is bright and the black is dark, so you can actually say that the use of color is striking in a black-and-white film. In addition to the de-crotchifying from start to finish, other limbs are lost as well, and seen � mostly as blood spurts in white, not red.

The dialogue is choppy, using comic-speak that no one uses ("You're pushing sixty and you have a bum ticker," for example, but uses of "but good"), yet I was totally into it and it becomes another piece of the cast. Much of the story is told by the characters' voice-over thoughts (more noir-ish style), and the characters are snippy and similarly choppy.

Besides using Murphy and Madsen, the only other complaint I have is that the trailers all used this one piece of awesome music, yet it wasn't in the movie at all. In fact, I don't remember much of the score at all, and that�s a sin. But not the cool kind like the rest of the flick. Throw in the unnecessary but welcomed nudity, and I had a great time watching Sin City.