ReviewAway: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

After the commercial and critical bomb that  was The Spirit, which disappointed fans and critics alike, many thought that the Neo-Noir style that Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez brought from the page to the screen in Sin City wouldn’t grace our screens again. But one bomb could never take down this series, and now Miller and Rodriguez have returned to the filthy street of basin city for the second instalment. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For follows a new story from the pages of Miller’s comics, but unlike the first film which was a direct adaptation of three stories, A Dame To Kill For adds to new yarns written by Miller exclusively for the film. In these, we follow Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a cocky young gambler with whole lot to prove, and Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba reprising her role from the first film) struggling to cope with Hartigan’s suicide while trying to take revenge on the man responsible, Senator Roark (Powers Boothe). These two stories are coupled with A Dame To Kill For, one of the Sin City comics’ most popular entries, in which we see an origin story of sorts for Dwight McCarthy, this time played by Josh Brolin, after the character appeared in Sin City played by Clive Owen.

Sin City‘s second silver screen soiree plays out much like its predecessor; buckets of stylised violence and smooth, slick writing played out in front of the a dirty digital backdrop of Basin City. It’s a formula that proves it can still deliver, even though at points it does seem to become a bit formulaic. Fortunately Miller and Rodriguez combat this by slowing the films pace down, spending a little less time on action and focusing more on the characters. Miller’s new stories are superbly written and showcase the films Noir writing and acting. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s Johnny is a character struggling to keep it cool while being tormented by Senator Roark, so Levitt seems to play him with an understated reluctance, almost as if he’s always second guessing what he’s doing, and it adds a new level of depth to his character, meaning he doesn’t have to rely on too much on screen action to keep him interesting to the audience.

The first film’s distinct look and feel are almost perfectly replicated in the follow up. The green screen black & white with splashes of deep colour is executed just as stylishly as it’s predecessor, but with a few misplaced strokes. Whereas the first film used colour to highlight the more emotionally intense points, A Dame To Kill For just seems to splash colour on something whenever it feels the audience might like it. It is used to good effect at some points in the film, but some times it ruins the gritty black & white style that the film envelops itself in. The cinematography is picturesque as always, and showcases Rodriguez’s immense talent for directing in an almost still image style.
The main difference Dame To Kill For has from its predecessor is its focus more on longer stories. Instead of focusing more on longer scenes, Miller and Rodriguez opt to instead shoot shorter scenes in a wider variety of locations. While it serves to tell a richer story, it limits the amount of substance put into every scene, and the characters end up seeing more one dimensional at points. Sure, having the characters stay mysterious is well within the bounds of Noir storytelling, but I felt that for the amount of screen time some characters got they, and the plot, weren’t explored very well. One of the main complaints the films received from critics is that it doesn’t characterize female characters well, and presents them as more shallow figurines than characters, but in my opinion that’s just an element of the style, and the characters in the film don’t feel any different from those in The Big Sleep or Kiss Me Deadly.
On a whole, this is a film made for fans of the first one. Miller and Rodriguez knew they had struck gold with the original Sin City and fro the most part they replicate it with the substance, style, and slaughter of the original. There’s a few misteps, and it may not leave as much of an impact as the first, but Sin City: A Dame To Kill For stands on its own in the smoke and steam of Basin City.
7.5/10