Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

nSin City 2: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

nDirector: Robert Rodriguez

nCast: Mickey Rourke, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, Joseph GordonnLevitt, Powers Booth, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Jeremy Piven,nChristopher Lloyd, Jaime King, Lady Gaga

nSin City (2005) is to me, one of Robert Rodriguez finestndays behind the camera, it was sheer cinematic perfection, the mood, thenimages, the words, everything flowed with amazing finesse and clarity. So ofncourse when I heard that Rodriguez and Miller were teaming up again for ansequel, I was more than excited. True, Robert Rodriguez can be a hit or missntype of director, but you have to admit, when he’s running on all cylinders,nthe guy can make some damn entertaining movies. El Mariachi (1992), Desperadon(1995) From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Planet Terror (2007) and Sin City (2005) arenall high watermarks in his career. And let’s not forget his more “for the hellnof it” films, like Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013), two great examplesnof the fun b-movies that Rodriguez is so good at making. Here’s a guy whonunderstands Pulp Fiction, not the Tarantino movie, but the concept. He knowsnhow entertaining over the top violence can be. To top things off, he’s got ankinetic style of storytelling, with a high emphasis on never letting thenaudience get bored. He wants to give you that shock, that cheap thrill, henwants you to chuckle and stare in awe at the screen. And on this aspect, SinnCity 2: A Dame to Kill For delivers the goods.

nThis time around we go back to the seedy underbelly of BasinnCity via four short stories all written by comic book mastermind Frank Miller.nThe stories are: A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, The Long BadnNight and Nancy’s Last Dance, which by the way was a story written specificallynfor the film. On this sequel we get to see many of the characters presented tonus in the first film, like Marv, Nancy Callahan, Dwight, Gail, Hartigan and thenevil Senator Roark. We are also presented to a whole bag of new ones like thenwonderfully conniving Eva, played by Eva Green. She’s the ultimate seductress,nusing her sensual powers to get what she wants, seducing her way to anything.nWelcome to Sin City, a place where nobody is squeaky clean.

nGoing back to Sin City feels like I never left, thencharacters, the images, everything holds a certain familiarity to it. The filmnstill has that distinctive black and white look and the characters talk in thatnspecial unmistakable Frank Miller talk. It’s cool to see the same charactersnagain, the only thing you have to be ready for is that certain characters arennow played by different actors, for example, the character of Dwight, who wasnplayed by Clive Owen in the first film, is now being played by Josh Brolin. The character of ‘Manute’, who in the first film was played bynMichael Clarke Duncan is now played by Dennis Haysbert. Devon Aoki, who playedndeadly little Miho in the first film, has been replaced by Jamie Chung, and sonforth. They are still the same characters, it’s just different actors playingnthen. Good news is that since they are all Frank Miller comic book characters,nthey still look and sound the same, you might not even notice the changes sonmuch.

nSo this film is interesting because its half prequel, halfnsequel. Some of the stories take place before the first film, some after thenfirst film. This is the reason why we see some characters who died in the firstnfilm back again, the most notable example would be Marv, who dies electrocutednin the ending of the first film. Marv is featured prominently in this film,nwhich is a good move in my book since he was everyone’s favorite character fromnthe first film. He looks just a bit different, but he’s still good old pillnpoppin’, head chopping Marv. The last story in the film, called Nancy’s LastnStand is a good old revenge tale with Nancy looking to avenge the death ofnHartigan, the detective that saved her from being raped, and “the only man shenever loved”. So yeah, you’ll feel like your revisiting your favorite, most fucked upnfriends. This is the nature of Sin City, it’s not a pretty place; these aren’tnwholesome characters. The stories that Frank Miller cooks up for these Sin Cityngraphic novels are about greedy, selfish characters, hatred and revenge pournout of their every pore.

nFrank Miller gets lots of heat because his stories have beenndeemed ‘misogynistic’ by some…in the parlance of our times, misogynistic meansnthat his stories display a certain amount of hatred towards women? Um, I’venread most of the Sin City graphic novels and I don’t really see that at all.nActually, I honestly think that’s just a bunch of horse shit. Let me see, if Inremember correctly, Hartigan saves a little girl from being raped…how is thatnmisogynistic? That very same girl grows up, and Hartigan once again protectsnher from ‘that Yellow Bastard’ who wants to rape her and kill her? This verynsame girl that Hartigan saves, later becomes a strong female character by goingnout to avenge the death of the man who saved her. Not misogynistic. Some of hisnstories actually empower the female, by making them strong protagonists, likenin Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For, where Nancy becomes a kick ass revengenhungry female lead. Sure these are storiesnabout prostitutes, so what, there are prostitutes in the real world so how is thatndisplaying hatred towards women? Prostitutes are a real thing in the realnworld, especially in the world of Sin City. In the first film, Marv falls headnover heels for “Goldie”, a woman he worships with every word that comes out ofnhis mouth. Another character called Dwight protects a waitress named Shellie from a violent,npsychotic ex-lover. In any case, if violence is inflicted upon women, it comesnfrom villains, not from the heroes who always protect the women, or love themnwith tremendous amounts of love and admiration. And it’s not like women arenalways depicted as being helpless victims, just ask the girls of old town, whoncan more than take care of themselves. If you ask me, Miller actually displaysnrespect and admiration towards women, not hatred. Miller actuallynaddresses some very real issues about women, issues that need to be addressednand talked about. So get outta here with your self righteous sanctimonious bullncrap. These are stories about a town called Sin City, if you can’t take thenheat, get out of hell’s kitchen.

nTruth be told, being accused of being misogynistic is thensmallest of Miller’s problems; what Miller really received a lot of heat fornwas for a story he drew and wrote called ‘Holy Terror’; a story that at onenpoint was going to be one of the most controversial Batman stories ever told. At one point it was going to be called ‘Holy Terror, Batman!’ But through the course of creating this tale, Millerndecided this was no longer a Batman story, so he changed the main characternfrom Batman into a new character of his own creation called ‘The Fixer’ andnprinted the graphic novel through Legendary instead of DC. But originally, Holy Terror was going to benall about Batman kicking Al Qaedas ass and killing a whole bunch of terrorists. The thing with Holy Terror is that Miller lived in New York during 9/11, and itnaffected him in a big way, Holy Terror was made as a direct response to that.nMiller has gone down as saying “I can tell you squat about Islam, I don’t knownanything about it. But I know a goddamn lot about Al Qaeda and I want them allnto burn in hell”. So yeah, his public hatred towards Al Qaeda garnered hatrednfrom many. Miller knew this was going to happen. He labels the book asn“Propaganda” that is “bound to offend just about everybody” But then again, ifnwe look back in time, Captain America and Batman both kicked Hitler’s ass inntheir own time, so to Miller, having Batman kick Al Qaeda’s ass was just a waynto pay homage to those classic politically charged comics and a way to commentnon the 9/11 attacks. Does it show hatred towards Muslims? Or just towards ansmall terrorist group? Is it racist? I don’t know because I have yet to readnit, but you can’t expect a review of it here soon. Whatever the case maybe,nMiller doesn’t back down from his work, he makes no apologies for it, and maybenthis is why as a form of retaliation, Sin City 2 has sadly tanked at the boxnoffice. I doubt that many people have read Holy Terror, but god knows there’s a couplenof sites, and a couple of blogs and articles out there spewing nothing but hatrednfor it. It could be that this all backfired on Miller and now Sin City 2 isnsuffering at the box office for it.

nThis is all too bad, because to me Sin City 2 is fun times,nas fun and mean spirited as the first film was. Many have labeled it as “more ofnthe same” and I have to say that I agree. To me this sequel being more of thensame doesn’t bother me one bit because I love the film noir world of Sin City,nif it’s more of what I loved from the first film then so be it, I welcome it. Ingot no problems with these stories being about prostitutes and psychoticncharacters, this is Sin City, keyword ‘Sin’. If I had to say something negativenabout the film is that the stories from the first film where slightly morenshocking and darker…by comparison these stories feel somewhat less important.nIt’s not that they don’t chop off enough heads or that there isn’t enough whitenblood, there’s tons of violence and nudity to garner the film it’s ‘R’ rating,nbut by comparison, the stories from the first film felt like they had more of anpunch to them. But whatever, Sin City light is still Sin City and the filmnstill has enough grittiness, nudity and comic book violence to please fans ofnthe ‘R’ rating. I’m saddened that Sin City 2 has tanked the way it has, there’snno real reason for it to be flopping as hard as it has, it’s an entertainingnfilm. Is it that audiences nowadays have become complete softies that can’tntake blood and violence in their entertainment? Has society grown only tonaccept PG-13 films? Whatever, it’s their loss. I hope they enjoy theirnumpteenth Step Up film.

n
n

nRating: 4 out of 5