Sometimes a comic book is just a comic book, even when it's called a graphic novel. Frank Miller's "Sin City," though it was transferred to the screen by the expert Robert Rodriguez, is still as flat as it was on the page. And don't get me wrong; I like comic books, I grew up on comic books, and still practice saying SHAZAM whenever I'm alone and my wife can't hear me.

Nevertheless, "Sin City" the movie sadly represents an enormous effort in an unworthy cause. Rodriguez has brought together a dozen A- and B-list actors, including Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mickey Roarke and Clive Owen, to name only half the cast, in this bleak, black and white (and red and yellow, used only as occasional highlights for blood and guts and lipstick) set of stories set in, well, Sin City. All of them involve proud, macho men as they try to save/protect/love women, who seem capable of protecting themselves quite well anyway. One story follows a detective named Hartigan (Willis) and the 11-year-old girl he tries to protect and then meets later when she's an exotic dancer. Another involves an unrecognizable Mickey Roarke, shot, stabbed, and otherwise maimed, who takes a very brutal revenge on an overly aggressive dog. Still another deals with trenchcoated Clive Owen and a group of prostitutes led by the very resourceful Rosario Dawson.