Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller.

2014. Rated R, 102 minutes.

Cast:

Eva Green

Mickey Rourke

Jessica Alba

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Josh Brolin

Dennis Haybert

Rosario Dawson

Christopher Meloni

Bruce Willis

Powers Boothe

Ray Liotte

Jamie Chung

Christopher Lloyd

Juno Temple

After all these years, we finally get to spend some more time in the tremendously seedy Basin City. The population seems to be rapidly declining and it's not due to people moving away. Think Gotham City on steroids. This go round, we again pal around with Marv (Rourke) on a quest to kill. We also get to hang with Nancy (Alba) as she deals with the death of Hartigan (Willis). A group of newcomers also gets lots of face time. First up is Johnny (Gordon-Levitt), a high-stakes gambler who always wins. He's come into town in search of big bucks, and possibly, something more. Lastly, there's Dwight (Brolin), Mort (Meloni), Ava (Green), our titular dame, and some others in a love polygon of some sort.

Visually, it wisely looks just like 2005's Sin City. Even after nearly a decade it's still striking. We get that crisp black and white with startling splashes of color. Shadows are also manipulated to heighten mystery in some shots and physically hide things in others. The characters are not always shot moving naturally. They often move the way they would had co-director and Sin City creator Frank Miller animated them. When they're not moving, they're stuck in poses we might find nestled in the pages of the graphic novel they came from. Like its predecessor, it's about as close as live-action can get to looking like a comic book.

You know the drill. A movie needs to have more than pretty pictures. This one really doesn't. Not much more, anyway. I mean, it's got some vaguely interesting plot lines and lots of action which looks fantastic as we've already discussed. However, it's clearly missing some things. Our first inclination that this isn't quite whole is when we encounter someone transplanted directly from the original: Marv. Even though he pretty much leads the movie off, he feels tacked on. It's as if the film makers realized he was the most popular character from the first movie and just shoved him in there any way possible. In the original, his story was simple, yet compelling. His motivations were clear and purposeful. Here, he's more or less, just some guy hanging around the strip club looking for trouble to get into. He finds some by himself, and tags along into some more, but none of it has the endearing quality his quest for vengeance had the first time around. Another returning character suffers an even worse fate. Nancy is completely pathetic as she drinks, cries, "strips" without taking anything off, and repeatedly not go through with killing Roark (Boothe). The pattern merely repeats itself ad nauseum. It's meant to make her this ultra-sympathetic character, but comes off as rather silly due to the overwrought script and Alba's lack of acting chops.

The movie doesn't fare much better with the newbies. The whole love whatever that thing is doesn't sizzle the way its obviously intended. It keeps telling us it's sexy rather than actually being sexy. Granted, looking at Eva Green naked for extended periods of time is quite nice, but doesn't really generate the heat necessary to carry this portion of the movie. In lieu of any emotional connection any man might feel for her, or any really effective psychological manipulation from her, her body becomes the entirety of her worth to the men in the film and us, as well. Again, it's a great body, but hardly enough to make these guys go to such lengths to stay in her good graces. This leaves Johnny's story. Thankfully, it has at least a little oomph, which is a more than the others. Part of this is due to a wonderful turn by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. A larger part is that Johnny is the only character as insanely driven as everyone was that first time around. Better yet, we don't immediately know what drives him. This could be a turn off, but it intrigues us. We clearly see that he's defiant and seems to have a death wish. Wondering why keeps us engaged in his exploits.

The biggest missing element of all is the original's humor. Not only was it twisted, it put its warped sensibilities in your face. It did this through the brilliant use of classic noir inspired, yet profane language. Very few movies can rival Double Indemnity in the creativity of its dialogue. The first Sin City is one that does. It's cleverness puts me in stitches whenever I watch it. This time, the only one who really delivers in that area is Jeremy Piven as Bob, a detective in the Eva Green story. Otherwise, despite having the same people behind it, the dialogue comes off as a poor imitation of its predecessor. It captures the surface style, but not the essence that made it great. In a nutshell, that really is the problem with nearly every facet of this movie. To create the sequel, directors Rodriguez and Miller definitely used the bottle marked Sin City. They just never caught the lightning to go in it.