Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

This review may contain spoilers!

We have waited many years for a sequel/prequel/anything that carried on Sin City and damn did the makers of this film do their best to disappoint us. I would give Sin City: A Dame to Kill For a 6/10.

This film had a wonderful visual style, it felt like a live action comic book which was very visually impressive. The effects and the cinematography were also terrific and really heightened the film's visual style which is in itself very unique. The musical score is the one thing that stood out in this movie as it was this return to a classic film noir score that really drew me to the film.

Mickey Rourke, who played Marv, was quite clearly the fan favourite returning to the franchise and managed to appear in every individual story told; he did a great job in his rather epic return. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played Johnny, was a new character with incredible acting talent; Gordon-Levitt's story was by far the most interesting of them all. Eva Green, who played Ava, had a very lackluster introduction but really nailed her role after that as she became more villainous; Green became one of the leading antagonists of the entire film. Christopher Lloyd, who played Kroenig, was one of the better cameos within the film and excelled in his scene; he was a hysterical role.

But it was the baddie of the film Senator Roark, played by Powers Boothe, that really was in their element. Boothe had a dark and twisted malice that was perfectly captured in the noir setting. In fact I looked forward to every scene Roark was in. An actor underused last time, this time Boothe was everywhere and pulling out all the stops to present one of the most nightmarish villains of the year.

This sequel/prequel felt flat on it's face the second it tried to be more than the first Sin City. The style was completely off, the effects were ramped up far too much and the editing was rather sloppy in places. The story also completely broke from the old style of Sin City storytelling, gone was the collective stories that interplayed alongside one another. Instead we had to wait an entire hour before the Johnny and Nancy stories were continued. It wasn't like the main Dwight story was very interesting either, in fact it was probably the worst of the two.

Jessica Alba, who played Nancy, didn't really bring much back to Nancy the second time round; well unless you count bad acting as something. Josh Brolin, who played Dwight, was a poor substitute for Clive Owen and seemed a bit like a weaker Marv rip off. Rosario Dawson, who played Gail, did not have an exciting return and was in fact a really disappointing performance to watch. Bruce Willis, who played Hartigan, did a terrible job in his cameo; giving a tired performance that strongly suggested he'd forgotten all about Sin City. Dennis Haysbert, who played Manute, gave a melodramtic performance and didn't really seem to belong in a film noir story. Christopher Meloni, who played Mort, gave a cardboard cut out performance and wasn't really interesting onscreen. Jamie Cheung, who played Miho, failed in her badass role to demonstrate a ruthless demeanour or convincing stunts. Julia Garner, who played Marcie, was the worst actress in the film and really was one of the only flaws about the Johnny story.