The Skeleton Key: avoid like the plague.

The best thing about it are the snatches bits of top class old delta blues that get played on a couple of creaky old record players, and The Dixie Cups version of “Iko Iko”. And while I might well buy the soundtrack, this really isn’t enough to carry a whole movie. I mean, I like voodoo mentalism as much, hell, probably quite a lot more than the next man. I should not be a hard sell for this. But this was poor. They spend the fiirst half of the movie setting you up for a “make-you-jump” voodoo fest with what looked to be first-act-guns for a showdown involving poor bastards with their eyes and mouths sewn shut, and animate severed tounges, and dead black men swinging from lynching ropes and looking for revenge. Top class nonsense.

This is not what it delivers, and the sudden gear change two-thirds of the way through is annoying. It’s got a perfectly sound basic horror premise, but it sets you up to believe it’s going to exectue it one way, and then does it another, and rather than the “Ah! Shock Twist!” reaction they were hoping for, I just felt like I’d been cheated out of my voodoo zombies.

Firstly: Many thanks to alexdecampi and davebushe for the preview ticket.

I loved it.

I’ve got to be honest: I wasn’t expecting it to be much cop. There’s a lot of dialogue/monologue in the comic that I just felt would be a bit iffy, when spoken aloud. The few clips I’ve seen on telly made it sound like yes, this was very much the case. And indeed, in a few places it did creak, although I do wonder if (in some cases, although not all) that was partly because they were the bits I’d heard on telly. But for the greater part of it, it carried it off pretty well.

But let’s face it, you’re not going to see this for the dialogue. This is a film that’s all about the visuals, and it delivers, in spades. Gorgeous looking, like nothing we’ve ever seen from Hollywood. Miller’s co-director credit is well deserved – there’s almost no shot in the movie that’s not in the comics. (Although I think I’m correct in assuming that Tarantino’s scene is the one between Owen and del Toro in the car – it’s certainly the one that’s least like the comic.) If you’ve got any interest in cinema beyond a “good stories” level, this is an absolute must-see movie. If you just want good stories, and like noir, well, you’ll still like it. It’s a caricatured noir, but still it’s a bloody good ride.

It’s an all-star cast, so let’s take a couple of seconds to look at them, shall we? Acting wise, Mickey Rourke is the obvious show stealer. Bruce Willis and Clive Owen both put in adequate performances – Owen never seems quite as on the edge as I might have liked, but then, I think if he’d been more obviously loony, there’d have been little to distinguish Dwight and Marv, and Willis, is, well, he’s doing he usual tough guy job, and while we’ve seen it from him a lot in the past, it’s exactly what’s called for here.

It’s bit harder to judge the women, to be honest – there’s a bit less for the actresses to work with, as the women in Sin City seem to chiefly exist to spur very manly men to action. Although I felt Rosario Dawson was a bit of a let down – I didn’t feel that she and Owen had much chemistry between them (compared to Owen and Murphy), and as arguable the lead female role, that’s a bit of a flaw. Top marks in the villain category have to go to Nick Stahl and Rutger Hauer, for two pleasingly mental bastards. Elijah Wood’s role is suitably creepy, but other than maybe trading off casting against type for his eyes, he really doesn’t have a lot to do to make it creepy.

Still, all these people are pretty/grizzled, and do at least adequately, and to be honest judging their performance is quite tricky, given the extremely stylised nature of the whole movie, from plot and dialogue through to the stunning, stunning visuals. And as I say, it’s the visuals that are the star here, and deservedly so. A perfect job of translating the look of the comic to film.

All in all: A must-see movie.

(Although I still want to know who stole Rosario Dawson’s nipples. I mean, it looks like she’s meant to be wearing fishnet, and I don’t see any evidence of her wearing something under it, and yet she has no nipples. Someone must have stolen them…)