Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For
Don't Go! A high-contrast shadow of its former self.
Bloodied brutes, crooks and hookers .
Sin City (2005) was a cracker. Compounded by 300 in the following year, it threw the graphic novels of Frank Miller onto the big screen with cold, hard cool and style for miles. It somehow successfully distilled gallons of sex, violence and darkness into something deliciously drinkable. Ten years on, director Robert Rodriguez finally returns with the sequel. Like the strong, smoky, single malt of the first, you'd expect Sin City: A Dame to Kill For to have been ageing in Hollywood barrels of badass for the past decade. Sadly, we've been given an expensive knock-off, which just has no kick.
In spite of its relatively modest 1hr 50 running time, the story lacks so much pace it feels twice as long. The interwoven tales feature many of the same characters as last time - Mickey Rourke is back (and he again is the best thing in the movie) as the seemingly indefeasible brute Marv, defending hookers, punching out lights and taking names. A new addition is Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is generally pretty gold-plated these days and unsurprisingly watchable in A Dame to Kill For. Other new characters Josh Brolin and Eva Green dominate the storyline, but are sadly pretty boring. One of them tries to make things more interesting by getting their breasts out a heck of a lot, but I won't spoil the surprise by telling you which one. Jessica Alba is back to her vacant, faux-sexy self as Nancy, making a passable casting quirk from the first film into an irritating error. Finally, Rosario Dawson returns as the highly-charged queen of the prostitutes, but without the same level of crazed energy she brought to the original.
Besides the storyline being slow and boring; and the script losing so much of what was good first time around, it is very difficult to care at all about any the characters. Caring is essential when those characters are beating lumps out of each other and screwing each other over. Like good Scottish whisky, a film like this needs warmth and depth. A Dame to Kill For simply ain't got none.
Besides the storyline being slow and boring; and the script losing so much of what was good first time around, it is very difficult to care at all about any the characters. Caring is essential when those characters are beating lumps out of each other and screwing each other over. Like good Scottish whisky, a film like this needs warmth and depth. A Dame to Kill For simply ain't got none.
The first film - despite the hyper-violence - was all about heroism. Rather than Captain America-style do-gooders, Sin City is an adult anti-comic: it is about people who kill for honour and to protect the vulnerable in a seething, exaggerated pit of repugnant injustice where options are few and such brutality seems justifiable. In the cinematography of the original, there were frequent splashes of colour that exposed the beating heart that motivated the film; indicators of a human purpose behind the savagery, not simply a cold black and white slate. Almost all of that colour is gone from the screen in A Dame to Kill For, a disappointing reflection of the pulse that the franchise has lost.
Instead, the sharp black and white overlay is virtually all that remains interesting about A Dame to Kill For. Like cheap, well-marketed vodka the film looks good enough in the bottle and will give you something enough to get a buzz on, but once you've had a couple of harsh-tasting glasses, you'll vow never to drink it again.
So don't go, and avoid the regrettable cinematic hangover that comes from having all style and very little substance. Instead, stay at home and pour yourself a nice smooth glass of Talisker.
Instead, the sharp black and white overlay is virtually all that remains interesting about A Dame to Kill For. Like cheap, well-marketed vodka the film looks good enough in the bottle and will give you something enough to get a buzz on, but once you've had a couple of harsh-tasting glasses, you'll vow never to drink it again.
So don't go, and avoid the regrettable cinematic hangover that comes from having all style and very little substance. Instead, stay at home and pour yourself a nice smooth glass of Talisker.
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