Marv, the biggest, ugliest thug in Sin City goes on a rampage of revenge after the beautiful woman he's sleeping next to is murdered and he's framed for the killing. Chancer Dwight inadvertently starts a turf war by trying to protect the prostitutes that run the Old Town and good cop Hartigan is sent down the river after he takes down a corrupt senator's son who's responsible for kidnapping little Nancy Callahan. But when he gets out of prison he discovers Nancy's all grown up and in serious danger.

The screenplay is based exclusively on Miller's comic books, which makes for mannered and self-consciously cool sounding dialogue. The majority of speech is delivered in voice-over anyway, so it was always going to sound exaggerated. There's also an earthy quality to the language that will offend those who object to the use of expletives. Having being taken from a comic, the screenplay tends towards a number of end-of-issue surprises or cliff-hangers that cause the pacing to stutter at times, but also makes for a number of exciting moments. Despite the monochrome visuals, none of the characters are black and white, neither good nor bad. Each has their own morality to which they remain constant, though the concept of character development seems alien to the writer. However, if you accept them as three-dimensional representations of two-dimensional archetypes, they work pretty well.

This might be the film to resurrect Mickey Rourke's career; he could have been born to play lantern-jawed thug Marv. Even under inches of prosthetics he has a brooding presence and is able to express emotions (though I'm sure being pumped full of botox has taught him how to do that anyway). For a guy who spends most of the movie killing people he's a strangely sympathetic creation, who goes on a murderous rampage just to avenge the death of the only person who's ever shown him kindness. Bruce Willis once more proves how well he can do in an ensemble piece as good cop Hartigan. For once playing older than he is, he does what he does best; plays the jaded blue collar everyman turned reluctant hero. It's not exactly a stretch for him but his acting style fits the film very well. For me Clive Owen is the only weak link in the chain of leading men. He doesn't have the requisite attitude or darkness to entirely convince as be-sneakered Dwight. He also has trouble keeping a handle on his American accent, which tends to fade in and out.

"Sin City" is basically one big special effect, testing the actors to their limit by placing them in an empty space and asking them to imagine the world around them. In many ways Rodriguez takes up where "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" left off, as he employs many of the same techniques. The most noticeable of these is the use of green screen that allowed him to create whole environments and life-threatening stunts without endangering his stars. He even went as far as shooting his characters in isolation with some never meeting the people they were sharing screen-time with. However unlike other summer blockbusters the effects never threaten to overpower the story, merely enabling it to be told in the most appropriate manner. It's not always clear what is real and what is digitally generated and that's testament to the high quality of the effects. There are times when you can look at things and know they aren't real - the most obvious of these being the way water ripples in too regular a fashion to look right. You can also spot where Rodriguez has, in time-honoured fashion, cut corners to save some cash, like the very fake looking wax head and a clearly plastic arm stump, but even these bloopers have a certain charm. The prosthetics used on the actors are great, making Benicio Del Toro, Nick Stahl and Mickey Rourke almost unrecognisable. It's a job well done in relation to the source material, where the profiles of the comic book characters and their human counterparts are almost indistinguishable from each other.