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Sin City (UMD)
Region 1 • R • Dolby Digital • Available Now
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Skip the DVD of Sin City and go straight to UMD… why? Read on.
Thoughts on the Movie
I missed this film in the theaters, but I was really excited to watch it. I was told that the movie was alright, worth seeing once and only once, and so on… but this film really surprised me with its unrelenting gore and violence. I don’t mind, but I was still a bit unprepared anyways.
There are three main stories in Sin City, and they don’t really have anything to do with one another except some shared locations. When I saw the cast the first time I saw the trailer for Sin City, I was worried. You can have a great cast with some key choices (such as the powerhouse cast of Batman Begins) but the more mish mash random Hollywood people you enroll, the more the movie might seem like adults playing dress up in a huge movie party. Thank goodness this isn’t the case, as everyone is very effective in their roles (except for Jessica Alba, who is hardly convincing.) I have to say I was the most intrigued by Brittney Murphy’s character during the break into her apartment… it’s like she was channeling Harley Quinn from the Batman Animated Series.
The whole film looks beautiful in black and white, and some key elements are colored. The symbolism isn’t hard to spot, but what’s there is very interesting, such as how heroes only bleed red while the rest bleed white, and the red blood from the villains only comes from the revenge of the main characters. Elijah Wood is especially haunting.
I liked this film, will definitely have to watch it again, but I wish we saw more of Sin City. For a town that’s so corrupt and evil, we hardly get any time to take any of it in, as many of the locations are outside the city. Ah well.
Video Quality
Buena Vista always had a problem with black levels (which are how deep the black colors can go), but thankfully Sin City is dark enough. The film looks absolutely fantastic on the PSP, as the ratio is OAR 1.85 with some extremely small bars on the top and bottom.
The colors, when they appear, look astounding, especially the drive to the pits with the different colors going in and out of the vehicle. This ranks up there with King Arthur as being one of the best looking films on the PSP.
5/5
Audio Quality
We get some great sound with some nice surrounds, but the overall volume is a tad lower than I’m used to. It definitely could have been louder, but it wasn’t as bad as the volume in, say, National Treasure.
Everything sounds crisp and sharp, but lacked the real punch this movie deserves. Just crank up the volume full blast and you should be good to go.
4/5
Extras
Good news: all the extras from the DVD have been brought over to the UMD. Bad news: there was hardly anything to begin with.
Well, the menus look really fantastic. The scene selection especially… this has to be the best looking scene selection menu I’ve seen yet. The way the previews are boxed in like a comic, with rain and thunder pouring over it, matches the movie perfectly. Excellent, excellent presentation… but we get forced trailers in the beginning. Dang.
The one bonus feature we get is
Behind the Scenes (8:32) which is just a quick rundown of what people thought about the movie, how excited they were, etc. It’s ok, but we’ll have to wait for the DVD Collector’s Edition later this year/early next to see how all the awesome special effects were done, I guess. The forced trailers are Kill Bill 1 & 2, and Dusk Till Dawn.
Now, I’ve seen UMDs with much more bonus stuff than this. But the UMD offers everything the DVD does, which is pretty much all I ask for.
4/5
Overall…
Sin City fans should do the smart thing… skip the DVD and get the UMD, which should hold you until the Sin City Collector’s DVD (which has been confirmed to be out in a “couple months” by Rodriguez himself). The UMD has everything you need… fantastic video, good audio, and a great presentation. I got it for $20, which is pretty reasonable. Recommended.
4/5
