Title: Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For
Director: Robert Rodriguez, Frank
Miller
Released: 2014
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph
Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis
Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Jaime King, Christopher Lloyd, Jamie Chung, Jeremy Piven,
Christopher Meloni, Juno Temple
Plot: Another collection of tales from Frank Miller’s “Sin
City” as Cocky gambler Johnny (Gordon Levitt) finds himself on the wrong side
of Senator Roarke (Boothe) after beating him a backroom poker game. Years
before “The Big Fat Kill” Dwight (Brolin) gets caught up with his former lover
Ava (Green) only to get caught up in a dangerous double cross. Elsewhere four years after the events of
“That Yellow Bastard” exotic dancer Nancy (Alba) is still plotting her revenge
against senator Roarke who she blames for Hartigan’s suicide. All in all it is going to be busy few nights
for muscle for hire Marv (Rourke)
Review: It’s hard to believe that it has been nine years
since our last visit to Frank Miller’s legendry neo-noir city of violence and
corruption, but after various delays and re-casting Rodriguez and Miller have
teamed up once more for this second collection of stories from Miller’s cult
series as this time the film builds around the story “A Dame To Kill For” which
forms the main meat of the film while book ended by two new stories “The Long
Bad Night” and “Nancy’s Last Dance” which Miller penned specifically for the
film.
Right from the opening short “Just Another Saturday Night”
which sees Marv waking up next to a crashed police car and trying to figure out
how he came to be surrounded by a group of dead frat boys, its almost as if
we’ve never been away as Rodriguez once again sticks to the black and white
shooting style of the first film, while once again clearly using the source
comics as the storyboards. A style which Miller tried to replicate for his
misguided let alone plain random adaption of “The Spirit” but thankfully
Rodriguez it would seem is the voice of reason in this team as this film
thankfully is free of any such randomness, while largely giving us more of the
intoxicating mix of gratuitous violence and black humour, even if the later is
noticeably more absent than in the previous film as the duo seem to be aiming
for a solid noir style tale. Frustratingly though when humour is introduced it
is often clumsily handled and more of a distraction than the light relief it
provided the first time around.
Still despite this slight change in direction, the familiar
faces waiting to welcome you back to Basin city means that it’s often none too
noticeable until you stop to examine the film closer. Thankfully in the time
which has passed nothing seems to have changed for any of these characters,
with perhaps the exception of Dwight who we get to finally see what he looked
like prior to his surgery. For most of the cast though it’s still business as
usual as they go about their various dirty deals or trying to find a way to
escape their various issues. At the same time we also get a whole heap of new
characters to add to the local colour even if these new characters are largely
to fill minor or supporting roles.
Sadly while it is a great cast which has been assembled
here, the performances throughout vary greatly with Bruce Willis phoning in yet
another performance for what is essentially a glorified cameo. Rourke
especially suffering as a result of his role being increased so that he now
appears in every story with the exception of “The Long Bad Night” almost as if
no one can pull of a plan in this city without his assistance, something which
really damages the mystique of his character as previously he was seen as a
lone wolf, while here he is largely to add to the violence quota or to provide
clumsy comic relief. Elsewhere and most disappointingly Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears
to be giving us a poor man Bogart impression as he snarls though his lines,
with none of the cool he brought to his previous Neo-noir effort “Brick”. The
fact his character lacks of any real purpose other than trying to embarrass senator
Roarke only adds to the creeping sensation that like “Nancy’s Last Dance” that
this story was only added as filler when it became obvious that they couldn’t
stretch “A Dame To Kill For” to feature length, while the fact its split into
two parts lacks the natural breaking point that we had with “That Yellow
Bastard” in the original and comes off looking like they remembered part way
though the film that they hadn’t finished Johnny’s story and return to hastily
wrap it up the same way all the stories end this time with someone getting a
bullet to the head.
Due to the long delays between this film and the original it
has meant certain roles being recast with Jamie Chung taking over from Devon
Aoki due to being pregnant at the time of film resulting in deadly little Miho
going from a stone cold killer to just another pretty girl from old town whose
handy with a sword. Dennis Haysbert makes for a great replacement for Michael
Clarke Duncan even if he doesn’t have quite the vocal presence of his
predecessor. Josh Brolin is equally on good form, even if his portrayal of
Dwight is perhaps alittle more gritty than Clive Owen’s who was supposed to
share the role with Brolin only to ultimately not be available for filming
which now leaves us with the scenes were Dwight has supposed to have changed
his appearance through plastic surgery, which I suppose would have seen the
role switch to Owen and now leaving us watching Brolin looking like he’s had a
bad facelift while bad guys act like he’s a completely different character!?!
The real star of the show here though is Eva Green, who is
utterly captivating as the titular Dame and despite spending a vast amount of
time in the nude, it never feels that it is being done for titillation, as here
it gives her an almost siren esq quality, especially when she uses her womanly
charms to further her own causes, usually with fatal consequences for the men
who succumb to her. While Angelina Jolie was the original choice for this role,
this is truly Green’s role and its hard to imagine any other actress being so
willing with some of the more risqué elements of this role, much less the
amount of nudity required.
Unquestionably though “A Dame To Kill For” is the strongest
of the stories featured and in a way makes sense considering that it was
written when Miller was writing in his prime, which as anyone who has read any
of his more recent efforts will tell you those days currently seem like a long
lost memory. Judging by Miller’s directorial debut with “The Spirit” it would
also seem that Rodriguez is the voice of sanity in the duo as this features
none of the sheer randomness that plagued that film, while lifting the visual
style of “Sin City” which here doesn’t seem to be as edgy as it was back in
2005, yet at the same time it is a style which suits the film still even if
perhaps the moments of colour we get throughout the film don’t seem to have any
of the poignancy of the original, which only used colour for the character of
Goldie and occasional splashes of crimson. Here though what qualified for the
colour treatment seems more sporadic and frequently without reason, though
thankfully Eva Green’s eyes are amongst the things which do.
While this might not come close to the original, it still
has its moments as well as fun smaller appearances by both Christopher Lloyd
and Lady Gaga as a drunk doctor and waitress respectively. Perhaps because of
the strength of its middle section though I still would love to see another
film in the series, if perhaps based solely on original material than letting
Miller try and write anything new again as here when it does it only detracts
further from the film. Like any night we see in the film this is one to be certainly
approached with caution.
