I remember being in shock and awe when I walked out of Sin City so many years ago.  It was the first movie I ever saw Elijah Wood in playing a creepy person, and when you’re still reeling from the magnificence that was The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King even though it’s been years since it last came out, that sort of thing sticks with you, you know?  I also remember being blown away by how beautifully it was all shot.  The movie really did feel like a graphic novel and with many, many scenes that looked and felt like comic book panels that came to life, some sequences are still fresh in my mind today (i.e. how blue Alexis Bledel’s eyes were on that rooftop, Elijah Wood tied to a tree while a pack of dogs tear him apart).

Let’s see if the sequel is as good.

Here’s the round-up of Frank Miller (The Spirit) and Robert Rodriguez (Once Upon a Time in Mexico) second love child, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

There are five stories in this movie, beginning with “Just Another Saturday Night”, which has Marv (Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2) waking up surrounded by a pile of dead bodies and mutliple car wrecks.  Of course he remembers nothing about the whole spectacle, so he tries to retrace his steps.

In “The Long Bad Night” parts I and II, we have a Basin City newcomer, arrogant but extremely lucky gambler, Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Inception), who swaggers into Kadie’s Saloon, makes a quick friend out of waitress Marcie (Julia Garner – The Perks of Being A Wallflower), and buys into the high rollers’ poker game in the back room.  He cleans out Senator Roark (Powers Boothe – Straight A’s), the most powerful man in Sin City, and John gets a first hand experience at how deadly messing with powerful people can be.

“A Dame to Kill For” opens with Dwight (Josh Brolin – Guardians of the Galaxy) saving a hooker named Sally (Juno Temple – Maleficent) from her married businessman lover Joey (Ray Liotta – Identity).  He later gets a phonecall from a former flame who really did a number on him, Ava (Eva Green – 300: Rise of an Empire), imploring and begging for his help to rescue her from her rich abusive husband Damien Lord (Marton Csoskas – Noah) and his evil bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert – Heat).  When things start to unravel, Dwight eventually asks for Marv’s help, along with another ex-flame, Old Town leader Gail (Rosario Dawson – Seven Pounds) and a now grown-up Miho (Jamie Chung – Sucker Punch) to get to the bottom of the situation.  Things only get more complicated when two Sin City cops – Mort (Christopher Meloni – 42) and Bob (Jeremy Piven – Entourage) start sniffing around.

In “Nancy’s Last Dance” we see the aftermath of the previous film’s predominant plot, where Nancy (Jessica Alba – Idle Hands) has a difficult time coping with Hartigan (Bruce Willis – The Sixth Sense)’s death.

THE GOOD:

1. JGL was born to be in this movie.  He had the look, the voice and the attitude of a Basin City dweller down.
2. The gorgeous Eva Green.  I don’t think anybody else could’ve played Ava Lord as convincingly, because really, Eva Green truly is a dame to kill for.
3. The cars they used were all characters of their own.

THE BAD:

1. Gratuitous nudity.  I don’t remember the prequel having as much nude scenes and the story survived pretty well without it.  In this film the nudity served more as a distraction more than anything else and, because of our dear old MTRCB’s penchant for censoring the shit out of things, made a real muck out of the plot.  Just because the actors are willing to strip down doesn’t mean you insert as much nude scenes as you can into a film, okay?
2. Too little JGL.  I wish “The Long Bad Night” was a longer story and had more screen time.  It sure was the second most interesting one, after the titular story arc of course, and I would’ve been more than fine watching just those two stories actually.
3. Jessica Alba.  Okay, she’s smoking hot and those dance moves are insane but she’s not really that talented an actor to carry the weight of a whole Sin City story.  Nancy in the prequel was bearable pretty much only because she was a side-character to Bruce Willis’ Hartigan.
4. The swaperoos, Josh Brolin and Jamie Chung.  I understand that it’s difficult to work around actors’ schedules and shit, but damned if I didn’t miss Clive Owen.  Dwight probably was the only role I liked him in and they went ahead and found him a replacement!  Devon Aoki definitely owned the role of Miho and Jamie Chung just isn’t bad-ass enough to be a suitable replacement.

THE UGLY:

1. The disjointedness.  A lot of what I liked about the first film was the effort the filmmakers took to tie everything together.  The last scene that circled back to Josh Hartnett was pretty much genius in my mind so the lack of continuity in this movie was baffling to me.  None of the story lines were connected, not really, and I think some of them were even set in different timelines (“A Dame to Kill For” happened before the events of the previous movie, yes?).  The stories were set in different seasons, at least – Marv’s was snowing, Dwight’s was in the thick of summer and John had rain.  I thought that that was intentional but it turns out it wasn’t.
2. Old dog, same tricks.  In the end my biggest beef with the movie was that it didn’t really offer up anything new.  The signature black and white style was definitely groundbreaking back in 2005 but at this day and age, it just doesn’t cut it anymore.  Miller and Rodriguez proved themselves capable enough to create something epic when they made Sin City.  It’s a shame that they couldn’t rise up to the challenge a second time.

All in all Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was a disappointing movie.  Even though all of the actors seemed committed enough to their roles, some of the new cast were welcome additions and some were not.  The stories, while interesting on their own, lacked a certain cohesivehess that gave the prequel that extra oomph that made it memorable.

THE VERDICT: 4/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.