Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

What a difference nearly 10 years can make.  2005's Sin City was an exciting movie, kinetic and alive.  It looked like nothing we had ever seen before, and its out of context multiple plotlines were energetic and involving.  Now, after years of delays and a troubled production, here is Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and it's the total opposite.  This is a sloppy and lifeless slog through familiar territory with characters who barely hold our attention.  All the movie has going for it (aside from a standout performance or two) is the same stylized look and production design, and quite frankly, the novelty has warn off.

The original film's directors, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, are back, as are most of the cast.  But, there is a sense that everyone is back due to contractual obligation, not creative energy.  The best sequels can expand upon the characters from the earlier movie, or maybe expand upon the world it is set in.  This one basically regurgitates the same multi-plot structure, gritty comic book look, and film noir characters, yet doesn't seem to know what to do with them.  The central characters this time around are a cocky young gambler who gets in over his head (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a stripper who wants revenge on the man who killed her lover (a lifeless Jessica Alba), and the titular Dame to Kill For named Ava (Eva Green), who plays deadly mind games on a former lover (Josh Brolin) and various other men.

Some of the original actors are underused, such as Mickey Rourke, who is effective despite wearing so much make up on his face, he kind of looks like a villain from Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy movie.  His performance is a lot more energetic than most of the others, but the movie doesn't use him to his full potential.  He gets to kick off the film with a short story where he goes after some rich punks that were abusing a drunk, then after that, he more or less plays supporting roles in other people's stories.  Bruce Willis also makes a cameo as a ghost, since his character died in the first movie.  He's more or less cashing a paycheck here, as he's required to do nothing but stand there and softly talk to Jessica Alba's character in a tone of voice that can either be read as quiet desperation, or he knows what kind of a turkey he's stuck in, so he doesn't give the role much effort.

At least he's in good company.  Alba herself doesn't seem to be giving much of an effort here, as a drunken stripper (who never takes her clothes off while on stage) seeking revenge.  Alba is supposed to come across as pained and tortured, but due to her witless performance and sloppy dancing (if it can be called that - it looks more like she's hopping around) whenever she's on stage at the strip club, she more comes across like she could give a damn about being in this movie.  You start to wonder if the two directors felt the same way, as the movie uses the same repetitive shots and scenarios over and over, giving the film a clunky and dragged out feel.  Despite only running about 100 minutes or so (the first ran just over two hours), the film feels like it's dragging its feet, going nowhere in particular.  This is usually what happens when talented people are called back for an encore they don't want, and it's incredibly evident here.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For has one saving grace, and that is Eva Green, who seems to be the only actor relishing her role as a murderous femme fatale.  While her character hasn't been written essentially well (she's basically sex and violence with legs, and no personality or character motivation), Green's performance is one of the few that actually has life behind it.  She's clearly having the time of her life slinking about the screen and lounging naked in bathtubs, as she seduces and corrupts pretty much every man in a 10 mile radius.  It's too bad she's not the central villain of the film, as the climax (a clunky standoff between Alba and her lover's killer) could have definitely used her scenery-chewing prowess.  But hey, at least her storyline has something that could be called a conclusion.  Some of the other plots in this film just kind of seem to stop at random.

One would think that the movie's visual style would be a highlight, as it was in the first film, but sadly this is not true.  While it captures the same black and white gritty style, with small splashes of color, silhouettes, and animation at certain moments, it looks cheap here.  The moments of color amongst the film's dark world seem to have been thrown in with little rhyme or reason, and often without purpose.  The use of animation and silhouettes also isn't that effective here, as it seems to be used very sporadically.  And I don't exactly know why, but the movie just looks kind of ugly.  I'm not saying gritty or dark, but just plain ugly.  Perhaps it's the fact that all the actors look like they can barely contain their doubts about the project they're in, but everyone looks tired and listless instead of gritty and angry.  The sets are cheap and lack detail, as well.

Everything about Sin City: A Dame to Kill For reeks of a project nobody really wanted to make.  If the original was a passion project, then this is just a lifeless cash in that took way too long to actually cash in on the success of the original.  This is one of the more lackluster films of the year, and given how much energy the original had, that's a huge surprise.

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