While it’s easy to write off Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s “Sin City” as style over substance, there’s more to the movie than just a dynamic visual sense. Not only was the film inventive in its green screen technology and captivatingly beautiful, but there was a strong balance of grittiness with tongue-in-cheek comedy. Poking fun at the mechanics of the film noir genre while also trying to play itself semi-straight.
It was a hard balance, but through transferring the comic as literal as possible (so much so that Miller earned himself a co-directing credit) it was able to be bleak and pulpy, brooding but with a slight twinkle in its eye. In short, it had its flaws: the writing was pretty wonky, the violence was rather tedious as it progressed, it was overlong and some performances were much better than others. But it delivered on its promises and produced a fun, exhilarating and memorable piece of popcorn entertainment.
While the prospects of coming back to Basin City were fun in theory, the prospect of a se- quel or prequel was a bit old hat when the movie was beginning to reach its tenth birthday. Not only have movies grown in terms of their digital background technology, but the constant promising of its filmmakers that it was happening, only to get nothing for so many years, made the prospect tiring.
After constant delays and endless build-up, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” comes a full nine years after its original. While there are certainly some beautifully perverse shots, and it’s fun to see some of these char- acters and backdrops again, ev- erything about this return feels off key, and—quite frankly—a little dated.
More of a prequel than a direct sequel, “A Dame to Kill For”—like the first one—intersperses three storylines instead of one, once again focusing primarily on one than jumping back to the other in due time. This time, the story focuses on a younger Dwight (Josh Brolin, taking over for Clive Owen), who finds himself in a deadly LOVE SPELL with a former flame, Ava (Eva Green)—who is the titular “dame.”
The second storyline centers on a new character, Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a slick card player who finds himself manning up to Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), whom he shares a more personal relationship with than most. Then, finally, Nancy (Jessica Alba) is seen following the events of the first movie, as she begins on a murderous rampage towards Roark following the death of her beloved Hartigan (Bruce Willis), who confines her in ghost form throughout the movie.
What made the first movie so enjoyable was its gleefully perverse sensibilities of providing a bloody over-the-top spoof on the genre that it was also tipping its hat to. In many ways, the movie was essentially a successful version of “Sucker Punch,” combin- ing everything that a 14-year-old boy would love with the jovial fun of a comic book. For as nice as this sequel can look at times, this movie rarely—if ever—captures the flimsy fun of the original.
Where the original was more pulpy and self-aware, this one is more hollow and self-serious. While the first tried to play into a younger fantasy mindset, this movie comes across as the same 14-year-old trying to make a serious film noir.
Where the original was innovate and well humored, “A Dame to Kill For” is fairly pretentious and dull. Like its more muted color grading, this sequel/prequel fizzles where the first film sizzled, and it makes for a disappointingly tiresome experience.
