"Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" Review

• Release date: August 22^nd, 2014 (U.S.)
• Director: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller
  
• Writer: Frank Miller
• Editor: Robert Rodriguez
• Score Composer: Robert Rodriguez
• Cinematographer: Robert Rodriguez
• Budget: UNKNOWN (by me)
• Current Domestic Gross $475,000
• Material: Digital 
• Aspect ratio: 1.85 : 1
• Running time: 102 Min.
• Current Tomato Meter: 43%

            When I was 17, Sin City came barreling onto the big screen in an explosion of sex, style, violence, and noir anti-heroism. Needless to say, I found that kind of exciting. Only once before had we seen a film shot entirely on a green screen soundstage as an obvious stylistic choice (the maligned Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow… never saw it), and since then, the use and popularity of the exercise has ebbed and flowed.  I can think of several titles off the top of my head which featured the practice for select shots, at least.  Ever since the Star Wars prequels hit theaters, filmmakers have applied it to action and fantasy movies easy (and somewhat stealthy) placement of their characters into a fantastical landscape.  It often works to great affect (the opening moments of Man of Steel), but it has also felt like a crutch bolstering weak material (Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland).  In the long-awaited sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, I’m afraid I have to report it has more in common with the latter.

            We’re back in black and white and sometimes gold, red, blue, and green land, and everybody is up to no good.  Mickey Rourke killed some evil frat boys and can’t remember where he got his coat.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is having no gambling problems what so ever until he faces Powers Boothe.  Josh Brolin has an abusive relationship with the sociopathic femme fatale Eva Green, and Jessica Alba is an alcoholic stripper who wants revenge.  Sound interesting?  Kinda?

            It just isn’t.  Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller have assembled a cast almost as cool as they had back in 2005, but the stories aren’t nearly so much fun or harrowing as they were back then.  Most of the performances seem phoned-in, and even the more committed actors only inspire a chuckle here or there.  I remember being sad when Marv (Mickey Rourke) died in Sin City.  Marv… the guy with the most contrived, frightening and outdated moral code ever assembled.  I loved him!  I still do, actually.  Rourke, along with Boothe, Green, and Rosario Dawson manage to shine through the rest of the film’s mundane indifference, but I could care less who comes out on top.

            The visuals aren’t helping much, either.  Between the blocking and camera placement, it is often hard to know if anyone was paying attention.  That’s not to say any moment is confusing, or disorienting.  I always understood what I was looking at, but in a film I hear was mostly shot one actor at a time (resulting in compositing multiple actors in the same scene in post production), I have to wonder if some good old-fashioned composition would have helped a movie which has the potential to do ANYTHING with its image.  The movie plods along from scene-to-scene, and vignette-to-vignette, in such a tiresome fashion, it feels more like the forgotten project someone finally got around to begrudgingly completing.  By the time Jessica Alba cuts her hair and face and is reborn looking like Michael Jackson The Vampire Slayer… I was ready to go home.

I got up to pee during this movie.  ME.  I got up and left... while the movie was playing…