The Case for Sinning in the City

I can barely recall the hype around the first Sin City movie as it was so long ago, but I recall it had a lot to do with the shockingly violent stories, the innovative animation style visuals, and the stripper who keeps all her clothes on.

The second Sin City: A Dame to Kill For movie did not come with the same amount of positive hype, and so I went along to it more out of a sense of obligation to it than any real anticipation of anything good.

And I was not disappointed, if that is the phrase one should use when not really getting something good when you expect it. 

The film had violence and style and good actors and the like (I have a soft spot for Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon Levitt), but it just feels so… dated.  Films like 300 have raised the bar on blending live action with animation; movies like the Raid have upped the violence ante; and twisted revenge storylines are par for the course for almost every other television series.  So the second Sin City movie really needed to up the stakes one way or another to be relevant and exciting.

And it failed miserably.  It was probably even a step back from the first film, with only occasional flashes of fun and excitement in amongst the grimness and the illogic.

At least Eva Green has a lot of fun, or at least almost as much fun, as she had in the second 300 film.  Its great to see Mickey Rourke back on the screen too, but he is more peripheral to other people’s stories than master of his own, so there is no real opportunity to connect to him.  Plus, the editor made some interesting choices, wrapping the JGL story that takes 48 hours tops around a story with Josh Brolin that takes weeks if not months, which annoyed me more than anything else.

Overall though, I didn’t come out railing against the film or particularly upset.  I suppose there wasn’t enough expectation in the film for me really to worry too much about it.  Shame really.

Verdict: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was decidedly underwhelming on all fronts.  A sequel to a movie that no one was really crying out for , with weaker stories and no real innovation.  Despite a great cast, the film really failed to capture my imagination, even if it did capture my interest from time to time.  5 splashes of colour out of 10.