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CinemaSins Movie Reviews
From the series of graphic novels of the same name by Frank Miller.
This movie is actually taken from the first, third and fourth of the series: The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard. The books are incredible, hard hitting and often gruesome noir stories with some of the best illustrations I’ve ever seen…beautiful stylistic renderings with amazing perspectives and contrast, just wonderful stuff. The stories and the writing are excellent as well, but the art is eye-popping.
The creators of the movie really did a pretty darn good job of bringing these books to the big screen. The three main characters (Marv, Dwight and Hartigan) are great to watch, especially the makeup job on Mickey Rourke as Marv to give him that beaten-up ugliness he needs to have. The women all look great as well, and the hookers in Old Town were straight from the pictures. Very nice. Much of the writing was word for word from the books as well.
And the look of the thing, oh man. Shot in black and white with touches of color, or with blood showing up as white (or yellow) patches instead of red…perspectives, sets, whole SCENES are faithfully recreated from the stories.
I still think these stories are more successful in graphic novel (‘COMIC BOOK’ says Mr. Otter scornfully) format…the dialogue can actually sound a little silly out loud, and the harshness of the black and white page is softened just a little too much by the camera…but this was a totally worthy project, very well done, and really fun to watch.
Especially seeing Frodo as a homicidal cannibalistic killer. Worth the price of the rental right there.
theotterlimits 