If it isn’t broke why fix it? That certainly was the thought going in when they created Die Hard 2: Die Harder, when they did The Hangover Part II and finally they’ve gone and done it again with Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the only problem is that the first two didn’t wait nine f**king years to give us the same sh*t twice!
Writer, Director, Comic Creator Frank Miller brings us the second installment to the hyper-stylized, hyper-violent Film Noir series based on his original comic book run with the help of Trouble-Maker Robert Rodriguez, who shares directing duties once again. Like the first one, we have a series of interwoven stories that show us the seedy underbelly of a town called Sin City, a town filled with criminals, strippers, crooked politicians, hookers, hard-boiled civilians, more strippers, chronic gamblers, even more hookers, and evil women who betray men (who might be hookers or strippers). Essentially women do not fair well in the world of Frank Miller - they’re either whores or dead and maybe, he needs to seek some professional help if that’s the way he views the world.
The film itself is beautifully shot and crafted. Each frame of this film could easily be mounted on your wall as a piece of art. There have been some great casting choices, particularly when replacing cast members who unfortunately past away during the nine year hiatus. The true highlights are Josh Brolin and Eva Green’s inclusion in the series. Josh Brolin naturally has the weathered face and voice of a hard-nosed detective whilst Eva Green looks like the perfect amalgamation of all the best parts of a classic femme-fatale. She is beautiful, seductive and ruthless, she really feels like she was born for this world.
Unfortunately, time has not been kind to this film. Nine years later, this sequel highlights the blatant misogynistic approach that was undertaken in the first film and the comic book series. Time, and plastic surgery, has not been kind to poor Mickey Rourke. It looks like a fat person has put on a Mickey Rourke mask and then put on the Marv make-up and prosthetics over the top of that. His performance is quality as always but it’s very distracting when you look at him throughout this film, his face just looks too bloated. Nine years has lead to Bruce Willis sleepwalking through another role, whilst poor Jessica Alba brings one of the most comedically funny performances of her career to life, what a pity she was playing her role seriously.
One of the biggest issues with this film is that the stories literally go nowhere. Each narrative feels pointless and often this is because the stories have endings that have no real payoff and are filled with characters that you don’t care for. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s storyline is the cinematic definition of a wet-fish, despite Levitt’s best efforts the story is dull and uneven, but most importantly you can see that Miller either didn’t care or didn’t know how to end Levitt’s story so just puts a literal bullet to the head of narrative.
The other really big issue is that Frank Miller is a relic that refuses to evolve. After the first film, he followed it up with a carbon-copy called ‘The Spirit’ and this showed that he was a one-trick pony, who amazingly gave the world Samuel L. Jackson’s dullest performance ever. After nine years, nothing has changed; he’s still the same bitter, racist, misogynist who is still living stubbornly in the past. It is well known that Miller has been unwell for quite some time and, as a fan, I do hope he recovers to bring us a story that redeems him as one of our great storytellers, but...
Unfortunately, this long-awaited sequel was not worth the wait.
One and a half stars, and that’s being generous.
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