Too little too late
I've been waiting for this movie for 9 years. I can't believe that the first Sin City came out in 2005 while I'm writing the review of the second one in 2014. That is insane.
The Plot
A hot shot on a winning streak (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) plays a deadly game with the wrong man (Powers Boothe). Elsewhere, a broken man (Josh Brolin) rekindles an old flame (Eva Green) whose intentions may not be what he expects them to be. While all of this is going on, a stripper (Jessica Alba) is losing her mind after the loss of someone she loves (Bruce Willis) as a hulking brute (Mickey Rourke) watches all three paths go down the way they do.
Analysis
The first Sin City was an eye opener for me. It was the first movie to actually faithfully adapt a comic book with extreme detail. From shot composition to the dialogue spoken, it wasn't a movie. We were literally watching a comic book come to life. Not like superhero movies of the early 2000s that only take a few things from the comics then add a lot of things to make it something watchable for the general audience. The first Sin City wasn't thinking about the general audience. Directors Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino and original creator Frank Miller were thinking of how do we make this come to life. Not how do we adapt this comic to the screen. How do we make it move on the big screen. Not work. Move.
Its success became a rallying cry among comic book fans who pointed out that being faithful to the comic books does work. It lead to two other comics that are 85-90% faithful to their source material in the form of 300 (another Frank Miller creation) and Watchmen, both directed by current DC Comics film overseer Zack Snyder. It would also bring about the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has been considered to be mostly faithful to their properties in a way that other studios have not been. Bryan Singer's X-Men may have been the first film to prove that comic books can be the source of great dramatic material, but it is Frank Miller's Sin City that showed faithfulness to the comic can indeed transcend the pages of the comic to the big screen.
However, given that it has been 9 years since that rallying cry of creating better comic book adaptations, the luxury of having something like Sin City is no longer wanted.
Review
This film came out too late. Would it have been better received if it was released a couple of years after the first one? Just a little bit better. But the wait and the loss of interest in this project can be felt. The Box Office Numbers show it. And as a huge fan of the original Sin City, I have to agree. The wait is not worth it. It's not just the long wait that made this movie so so, it is the handling of the narratives within the story.
In the first story we got Johnny, played by a charismatic Joseph Gordon Levitt, who is literally the embodiment of victory when it comes to games. His feeling of having endless good luck on the slots and card games puts him up against Senator Roark played very evilly by Powers Boothe. His story was cut in half, acting like book ends sandwiching the titular "Dame to Kill For" story in between. Because of this the emotional impact of what happens to him is not really felt. It could be because his story doesn't have any large impact on anyone, even in the first half of the story. Had this story been really strong, then when the second half came back, the emotional impact would have made the conclusion a lot more satisfying. But it just wasn't. It probably would've been better to just play his story all the way through, but in the end it just didn't feel necessary. No matter how much you like Joseph Gordon Levitt, you will definitely like his character but you will not care about his story.
Then there is the second main story that takes up a majority of the film known as the "A Dame to Kill For" story. As I stated before, it cuts through the turning point of Johnny's story and takes up a large portion of the film. This story marks the return of Dwight McCarthy played by Clive Owen in the previous Sin City but in here he is now played by Josh Brolin. In it he finds himself entangled in a web of lies created by his former mostly naked lover Ava played by Eva Green. Through her manipulation of Dwight and every other man she comes into contact with, it all spirals out of control into a savage retribution story that we know will not end well for Ava. It is the longest story out of the many that are shown in this film, yet at a certain point you want it to end. As nice as it is to see Eva Green naked 90% of the time she's on screen, it almost becomes boring to look at her. And while Brolin does a nice job as Dwight, I do have to wonder why Clive Owen didn't come back when his rendition was suppose to appear. As comic book fans know, the Dwight in this story would later transform into the Dwight seen in the previous movie, but trying to transform Josh Brolin into Clive Owen just doesn't work.
Then there is the final major story that takes place after Johnny's and Dwight's which is referred to as Nancy's Last Dance. In this story, Jessica Alba reprises her role as the stripper with heart of gold named Nancy, who is suffering from the loss of her one true love, Hartigan played by Bruce Willis. Hartigan appears as a ghost in the story, but is unable to comfort the girl who loves him as he watches her go crazy. So crazy to the point where she decides to kill Senator Roark, the man responsible for Hartigan's death. This is definitely the best acting that Alba has done, but given the length of the story and how most of her screen presence throughout the movie consists of her doing sexy dancing, she didn't have enough time to grow. Which is a shame, because as the big finisher of this movie, you'd think it would be longer and more exciting.
I shouldn't really compare this movie to the first one. but it has to be done. In the previous movie, the stories were all given enough time to breathe and were able to complete their runs from start to finish before the next one takes over. Even the opening short story of the first one was more compelling than the cartoon violence opening of this film. In here, the stories have uneven lengths and it is never really sure when their stories end. I'm sure the cast is having fun doing this film, but for some reason this film looks like a complete step back from the previous one. It feels fake. Unlike the previous one that feels like a comic book, this one just looks cheap and poorly made. The action scenes in this one look even more unrealistic compared to the stylized action in the first one. It just becomes jarring and could easily remove an audience member from the experience.
The only good thing about this movie was Mickey Rourke as Marv, but even then his compelling character from the first movie devolves into being observer and muscle in this movie.
Final Thoughts
This was a huge let down. The 9 year gap didn't help this movie. And in a world where comic book movies evolved, this movie didn't seem to evolve with it. It is stuck where it was back then, and while that is more attributed to them being trapped in the boundaries of the comic book, it really shows how far we've come from wanting faithful adaptations of comic books. We seem to have grown past the literal faithfulness and just want faithfulness. This film is more of a cheap imitation to what the first one is. Still made with the same mindset in mind, but that is probably why it failed. And given it has to remain trapped in that mindset, then this film should've came out earlier than later.
SCORE: 4/10 - A big disappointment yet still looks cool but will get boring
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