It’s been about nine years since Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City took theaters by storm, offering a brand new kind of cinematic experience, one that felt like a living and breathing comic book. It’s also been that long since I’ve seen it, so while I attempted to re-watch the first before I screened the upcoming sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, I only got about 20 minutes in before I was ready to pass out. That being said, I won’t be comparing this film to the first much, but rest-assured it’s not as good.
Similar to the first film, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For follows a handful of storylines, all of which become connected by the time the film ends. The three main characters are Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a cocky gambling man looking to beat Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), the main villain, at a game of poker, Dwight (Josh Brolin), a distraught man who makes a living as a P.I. but soon falls victim to the woman that hurt him in the past, Ava (Eva Green), and Nancy (Jessica Alba), who is still torn up about the death of Hartigan (Bruce Willis) and is looking for vengeance.
There are a few really cool elements of Sin City that I really appreciated. Watching the opening credits in 3D was incredible, it’s one of the coolest opening credit sequences I’ve seen in a while and the 3D meshed perfectly with the comic book visuals that were utilized, it felt like a pop-up book. Throughout the film, the usage of 3D was inconsistent but when it worked, it worked really well, so hats off to the cinematographer during those specific scenes. Also, similar to the original’s style, the constant back and forth between silhouette and CG characters to the real life acting blended in with as much green screen as possible was pretty cool. On a visual level I found this movie fascinating, it’s something drastically different from most of the other films you’ll see this year, so from a stimulation standpoint it works.
Connected to the visuals but on a completely different level, the women in this movie are as just as sexy as the first. Jessica Alba wows like never before and Eva Green, well, I could have simply stared at her the entire film and been a happy man. Is that perverted? Maybe, but you ask any straight man their thoughts on this movie and she’ll be one of the first things they mention.
As for the rest of the movie, it’s a real disappointment, even for someone as easy to please as I am. I enjoy violent movies if they provide some sort of entertainment value, but this one felt so flat. Outside of Johnny’s charisma, Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Manute’s (Dennis Haysbert) briefly cool battle, a sweet video-game like chase sequence and the fact that the beautiful Eva Green was topless more often than not, I didn’t care for anybody or anything. I know the characters aren’t exactly model citizens, it is a Frank Miller comic after all, but with exaggerated performances, a lot of repetition, and a storyline that becomes more and more predictable the film refuses to let you become engaged. Furthermore, the repetition of some of the narration ends up making the film feel like a marathon that’s dragging on rather than a movie that’s actually only 102 minutes long, which is a shame because it started off so promising.
Overall, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For probably isn’t worth paying for unless you are a huge fan of the series and have really low expectations for the film. Two other reasons to see it may be to see how well the style translates to 3D and for the glory of beauties Eva Green and Jessica Alba. If you’re a massive fan of the comics or first film it may be better to wait until this hits home video so that you don’t hurt anyone caused by your potential anger. While Sin City can be a visuall cool experience, that only accounts for a portion of the film and it isn’t enough to carry all the needed entertainment value to make it worth the price of admission.
Rating: A different type of feast for the eyes, this sequel fails to engage and truly entertain its audience for most of the duration (4/10)
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