Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

Or perhaps that should read, "Frodo, I don't think we're in the Shire anymore," considering how one of our all-time favorite hobbits mutates into an insatiable, head-collecting cannibalistic psycho in Frank Miller's Sin City, without even blinking an eye (literally).

He's only one of the many deranged lunatics we get to spend quality time with in the dark, courtesy of Robert Rodriguez's undeniably faithful film version of Miller's intense and brutal graphic novels. With a screenplay by Miller himself and co-directed by him (with a guest-director credit to Tarantino - what would Sin City be without his contribution, I ask you!?), we get to take a trip the likes of which we've never taken in a movie theatre before, and hopefully we'll never have to take again, but that's just my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, the film is a stupendous achievement, visually - if you've ever read any of the Sin City graphic novels, you'll recognize the place immediately from the very first shot: beautiful, bleak, barren, brutal - all the good 'b' words. And the stories weave together brilliantly, there's no question: the film works on a plot level too. The performances couldn't be any better either, particularly Mickey Rourke's portrayal of Marv: covered in band-aids, brandishing bucketloads of bile, with a prosthetic profile which looks like a combination of Kirk Douglas and Roy Scheider, this is most definitely the role he was born to play.

And you want babes? There's plenty of babes, most of 'em decked out in bondage gear to beat the band, and they're just as hell-bent on kickin' major butt as their male counterparts, make no mistake. Sounds really swingin' so far, huh? But remember, this is a Rodriguez/Tarentino joint, so of course it's gotta be more than just tastefully violent, it's gotta be yer basic beyond-the-levels-of-human-endurance affair, with broken bodies, half-eaten bodies, Pez-dispensered heads and severed heads galore, and this is just in the first hour. The person I saw it with had her eyes closed nearly the entire time, but that still couldn't shield her from the carnage, because, this, being a Rodriguez/Tarantino joint, remember, has to also include the characters' graphic verbal rehash of the violence: what had just happened to the victim, what it felt like when it happened, and what was going to happen next. So if you're especially squeamish, bring ear plugs to the theatre as well as your eye mask.

When I was watching the film, I couldn't help thinking how much fun making this movie had to have been, especially for Frank Miller, to finally get to see his vision brought so lovingly to life, and this got me through some of the most bombastically brutal sequences. Don't get me wrong again, Sin City is not an incoherent exercise in excessively over-the-top self indulgence (a la From Dusk Til Dawn). It's worth seeing, especially if you could sneak an extremely large flask into the theatre with you (which I kept wishing we had done).