Sin City Deluxe Edition

One of my biggest pet peeves as a DVD collector is when filmmakers decide to release a deluxe edition DVD a few months after the release of the original. I always feel cheated at having bought the original and wonder if the new version is good enough to merit a second purchase. I finally broke down and purchased December's re-release of Sin City (four months after the "plain" version). But was it money well spent?

The heart of any DVD is the actual movie, so I skipped straight to disc two to check it out. I was immediately disappointed when I learned there is no extended version of Sin City. There are instead shorts that are extended parts of Sin City. Rodriguez's voiceover explains that this was done to make the segments more closely match Miller's graphic novels. I understand that, but separating them removes any sense of a continuous narrative. We're left with stories that feel only marginally related.

Of these, the most changed is "The Hard Goodbye." This segment mostly benefits from the new scenes, especially the addition of Marv's mother. My favorite segment, the "Hitman" Hartnett bookends "The Customer is Always Right," is completely unchanged. Hartnett's character is filled with quiet mystery. Unextended, he stays mysterious. The two remaining stories have little new footage. Of all the new material, the jewel is the expanded dialogue between Nick Stahl's verbose Mutt and Jeff henchmen. Overall, the extended version is hit or miss. The new scenes flesh out more detail, but at the expense of pacing and narrative. Movies are about storytelling, and the story told by the theatrical cut is the superior of the two.

Deluxe editions are always about more than just the movie, and Sin City is no exception. Both discs are crammed with bonus features, none of which are available on the original. The standout features are mostly on disc two and include a time-compressed green screen version of the film devoid of all special effects and a 17-minute sequence of raw footage from the Tarantino-directed scene with Dwight and Jackie Boy in the car. These two features offer an extraordinary glimpse of the filmmaking process.

Disc one's features are dominated by commentaries. Unusual among these is the "audience version," recorded at Sin City's Austin premiere. It's an interesting novelty, but includes more hooting and whooping than I would have expected. Is this a Texas thing, I wonder? The other two commentaries give birth to my favorite bonus feature: The Sin City Drinking Game! To play, drink whenever Rodriguez says, "This is why I edit my own films." You win if you're drunk enough to be interested in the mini-documentaries rounding out disc one. There's a featurette about the cars, one about the costumes, another about the weapons, etc., etc. There's only so much of this I can watch before I start to feel numb.

Completing the set is the coolest bonus feature ever: a printed copy of "The Hard Goodbye." Comparing the print and screen versions shows how painstakingly Rodriguez adapted Miller's originals. However this volume is smaller than the retail edition, so you shouldn't plan on using it to jumpstart a Sin City library.

Some of these extras are very impressive, but most of them I'll never watch again. If you own the original release, give this deluxe version a pass. But if you're new to Sin City this purchase is a no-brainer and a welcome addition to any DVD library.