Review: Sin City 2 - A Dame To Kill For

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (3D / SLIGHT SPOILERS. ish.)
Cert: 18 / 102 mins / Dir. Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller




The opening roll-call of Miller and Rodriguez's seamless follow-up to 2005's Sin City warns once again that this will be a film with too many characters. Episodic in nature as its predecessor, the stories A Dame To Kill For are set after the Hartigan thread from last time, but before the Marv one. Although both characters still feature in this film, and the comic-book roots of the stories mean they exist in their own heavily-inked isolation, anyway.

We're back once more in Basin City for another trio of tales of nocturnal sleaze, debauchery and vengeance. Mickey Rourke returns as the bullet-headed trouble-magnet Marv, this time siding with Josh Brolin's not-so-private eye Dwight in a story which pits them against Eva Green's calculatingly unhinged Ava. Elsewhere we get Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the brash gambler Johnny out to teach Senator Roark a lesson he won't forget, and the return of Jessica Alba's Nancy, with her own score to settle from the first film. As mentioned above, Bruce Willis reprises his role, as do Rosario Dawson, Power Boothe, and Jaime King.

It's all shot in uber-noir, and the presence of JGL reminded me how much I'd love to see a live-action Batman feature executed in this style. First-person voiceovers feature heavily again, as does the convoluted web that exists between the characters. But the moments of monochromatic bloodshed which drag the smoky 1930's screaming into the present-day seem to be spaced too far apart, even if when they do arrive, they do so with a glee which outshines Sin City's. In terms of general tone, Rodriguez seemed to be having far more fun in Machete Kills. And just because you can count the number of smiles in A Dame To Kill For on one hand, don't be fooled into thinking it has any deep message to impart. If anything, the film's treatment of its female characters leaves me feeling somewhat uncomfortable, but that's an area best covered by writers more qualified to wade into such waters.

You'd imagine the 3D would be a great addition to a film which is borderline animated, but if anything it just makes the juxtaposition between the photography and rendered backdrops more jarring. It's clear from the off that more money's been spent on the visuals this time around, but it doesn't make for a smoother ride. Not withstanding the fact that the screening I saw had 3D ghosting all over the shop, the lesson I gleaned from Sin City is that film noir needs restraint, not excess.

All in all, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For has been made with care and attention, but I'm not entirely sure there was any need for it to exist. It expands on the continuity of the first film with flair and conviction, but it never really adds anything to it. If that's good enough for you, then fair play; it's certainly more entertaining than a lot of films I've seen this year.

Fans of the first film will welcome it to their shadow-loving hearts and bookshelves, but it's not doing anything Sin City didn't.
And crucially, it's not doing anything better.

I'd say so.



Y'know what, I don't think I actually did.



Probably, although that's not really for me.



If you're going to see a film this dark, a massive dark room is the perfect place for it.



Nah.



Probably.



I didn't hear one. And this is Robert Rodriguez, here. Sort it out, man.

What the hell is Eva Green doing with her accent? British? American? Australian?

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Sin City

Sin City
Cert: 18 / 119 mins / Dir. Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller & Quentin Tarantino




The first of a double-bill to usher in the sequel, this was only the second time I've seen Robert Rodriguez's 2005 film, but the first I've seen it on the big screen. Curiously, while I enjoyed it more than I evidently did in 2011, I still wholly agree with everything I thought then*¹.

Visually, the film is absolutely gorgeous, and having not read co-director Frank Miller's books, I can only imagine they're a fairly accurate moving adaptation of his work. The script is frequently beautiful, evoking the spirit of smoke, long-held grudges and nights as dark as blood soaking through a black dress*². It's just a shame that not all of the film's cast can do that script justice. It's mostly great, but there's real poetry in those lines, and it doesn't always translate as well as you know it should. Likewise, the imagery which carries so much movement when it's static somehow loses its edge when pushed through live-action and almost into animation. Sin City is often far too busy for its own good, and what should be a character piece becomes a kaleidoscope of grimaces and blurred roadside barriers.

Film noir requires a sense of claustrophobia which I'm not sure Rodriguez knows how to bring to life, even with Miller alongside him. Gloriously dark both visually and thematically, the film is unashamedly style over substance. This isn't always a bad thing of course, but Sin City does have the substance which seems overlooked in the rush to cram as many wisecracking characters as possible onto the screen.

There's a definite nod towards the Pulp Fiction style of narrative intertwining, but whereas Tarantino's masterpiece had an almost warm familiarity at its core (even the first time you watched it), Sin City's uneven episodic nature and unevenly likeable characters do more harm than good. Maybe it's the lack of knowledge of the source material, but the film didn't flow quite as smoothly for me as I felt it should.

Visually arresting, Sin City covers enough stylistic bases to have carved itself an almost timeless niche, and will no doubt be entertaining audiences for years to come. That said, the crowd it attracts in the future will probably be as selective as the one it has now.

The film would be a damned sight more enjoyable if it'd just slow down and smell the blood, once in a while...

Pretty much.



Kinda. Mostly.
Although not as much as the woman two rows behind me, admiteddly.



I think it does, it's just that that thing isn't really for me.



Well, your choices are more limited now, but I'd say that if this is your thing then you probably already own it.



I won't.



After having watched it again, I probably will, yes. I think that's irony?.



There is, but it appears to be pitched upwards a little.
RESTRAINT, RODRIGUEZ. RESTRAINT..

Marv has the number 87341 on his prison overalls in Sin City. Any idea why this is?
Google doesn't seem to know, and I don't believe something this visual would have no meaning at all.

*¹ Well, no-one else is going to fucking well agree with me, are they? (I jest (I don't)) :p
*² A line from a book by Graham Masterton that hasn't left my brain since the day I read it, even if the rest of the novel mostly has.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.