Sin City: A Dame to Kill For - Analysis and Review

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

Film Adaptations - Panel to Panel: The Age of the Comic Book Film

Part I: The Age of the Comic Book Film

**WARNING:Here there be SPOILERS**

For a child living in a time when there are films about Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman, and Batman on the big screen within just as short period of time, this must be a golden age for them. However younger audiences couldn't possibly comprehend just how difficult and what a long road it took to get this point. The trail blazers for this movement such as Superman, Batman, X-Men and Spider-Man are trying to regain a new sensibility in a world that is under the dominion of MARVEL MOVIES. Just as a quick note, for those who don't know, Marvel Film Studios does not own the X-Men or Spider-Man properties due to selling them to other studios back in a time when making comic book movies was a risk.

These days comic book movies are sure fire hit...well most of the time. This is the age where bringing super powers to life on the big screen is no longer a thing of the imagination. With technology the way it is and audiences slowly being convinced that there is something worth seeing for the past few decades, it really is the right time to unleash these properties beyond their core audience.

But within that core audience comes a fine line of BIASED loving devotion and BIASED hatred. The Age of the Comic Book Film has spoiled geek culture. For the better or for the worse, it is spoiled. No longer are the days where people would just be happy with a new comic book adaptation. Now it is the pleasing of the fans that (at least to them) takes priority over the general mass audience. There are some properties who do this fairly well such as Marvel. Then there are properties who try to craft films first then comic book fan priority second such as Fox handling the X-Men property. Then there are those who are leaning more towards the real world precautions of having deities fly above us at Warner Bros. with the Justice League property. And while all of these identities are being shaped, other comics whether they be unknown but beloved superhero properties (Watchmen) or non-superhero properties (Sin City and 300) also find life on the big screen.

But this article is not really a long history of where did it all begin and where we are now. This will be the first in a series of articles about the Criticism of the Fans towards their beloved properties and the general lack of understanding that is encased inside a closed minded head. How do I know this? There was a time when I was one of them.

A shifting opinion - My views on Comic Book adaptations

As a child watching my first comic book film, Batman Forever, I did not care about how inaccurate the film was. I was an ignorant admirer of the story and the characters. I had no idea the Riddler was suppose to be a serious, cold hearted, calculating mastermind that was actually responsible for improving Batman's detective skills. I didn't know that Two-Face was a serious character with a very serious mental condition and not some cackling villain that Tommy Lee Jones was directed to portray him as. I didn't even know Nicole Kidman's character Chase Meridian was not from the comics. But I didn't care. Because a child just wants to see something cool. Of course it would lead me to watching the Bruce Timm Batman: The Animated Series along with the Tim Burton films (that frightened me as a child) but that was just scratching the surface.

When Bryan Singer's first X-Men film was released back in 2000, I knew I was in for something different. I had seen some of the X-Men cartoons in the 90s, mainly because I wanted to see that awesome intro, but was never an avid fan of it. That all changed after viewing the live action outing. I thought Hugh Jackman was the coolest man on the planet as Wolverine and Magneto was the greatest supervillain I've seen. My mentality shifted from casual fan to wanting to actually know more about them! The first comic book I picked up was an X-Men comic, and the experience was...was...not interesting. I had no idea what was going on because I thought what I saw in the movie or on the TV show would be exactly the same in the comic. I didn't know what I was reading, I didn't know who some of the characters were, or why some of the characters I knew were not on the same team. I was not willing to find out why. From that point on I decided not to pick up another comic book because I thought to myself, "Why waste my time and non-existent money (I was 12 at the time) on a product that I don't even know where it begins or currently ends." That was the day I decided to just let the movies tell me the story and not bother with all the lore. What it also did for me was gave me this mentality of "comic book costumes would be stupid in real life." I loved that they used stylized black leather outfits because I just thought that was cooler. I even remember drawing Superman in similar outfits because at the time I thought to make a "lame" superhero cool, just change their costume. My perception changed quickly immediately when Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie came out because it had a really cool costume that looked exactly like the one in the comics. But my perception of not wanting to know the comic book lore was still in tact.

Then Robert Rodriguez had to make me change my perception again with a little film called Sin City. I was amazed by the visuals and the beautiful use of hard monochromatic contrasts. The violence, the sex, the noir, everything that I could've possibly wanted for a teenager who was going through puberty. But as a person who was fascinated by how films are made, come my surprise when I see online videos that delve into how the movie was shot "panel to panel" straight from the comic book! I was amazed. My perception changes once again. Can such a thing be possible? I had to see for myself by actually BUYING one of the Sin City graphic novels and read it while watching the movie. I was floored! I went out and bought more stuff by Sin City author Frank Miller hoping to discover what else could be turned into a movie. I felt like I reached an epiphany! Why make inaccurate adaptations of the comics when one can easily just do what Sin City did, copy the exact same thing and put it on the screen! The following years didn't stop this mentality from growing due to Zack Snyder. His faithful adaptations to 300 and Watchmen were my way of championing that it can be done and that is the way it should be done! It was a mentality that was short lived but the idea of "it should be like the comics" stayed with me. It should be noted that during this time was when my apprehension of not wanting to read comic books and understand the lore ended with me buying Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns.

So by the time I was in college I was pretty much a fully realized comic book head geek within the span of my last two years in High School. I knew anything and everything about DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Image. I was the comic book guru among my friends and whenever a film came out they would ask for my opinion on it. I'd rave about what they did right and then bash them for doing things completely wrong. They wouldn't understand my new found hatred for the X-Men films because they were inaccurate. I was asked one time to list off all the problems with it, to which I learned I had many. But then I was asked if by itself is it a good movie? To which I said it was an incredible film if you don't care about comics... Then it dawned on me. Only 5-10% of the people who watch comic book films are the ones who READ and KNOW comics. 

Just 5-10% know what is right and what is wrong with the adaptation. The other 90-95% majority? They could care less. That is when it really hit me on the head. And this is a good thing that it did in college when my goal is to become a filmmaker. The priority of a filmmaker is not to please the fans, but to make a GOOD MOVIE.

In my next PANEL TO PANEL article I'll be discussing movies that are incredible films but horrible adaptations of the source material. You can check that out here.