It has been nine years since the first SIN CITY, and the next film in the SIN CITY series has been made by Robert Rodriguez and comic book creator Frank Miller.  It acts as a sequel to some stories (like NANCY’S LAST DANCE which is a sequel to THAT YELLOW BASTARD) and the title story is a prequel to SIN CITY: THE BIG FAT KILL (which was adapted in the first film).   Rodriguez was planning to make this movie years ago and it may have been too long a wait for the audience (judging from the box office).   SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR is a worthy follow up to SIN CITY where the interlinking structure of the film works quite well.   Eva Green quite literally steals the movie for the most part along with the other females (Jessica Alba, Devon Aoki), but the big disappointment is Josh Brolin who is OK as Dwight and yet he doesn’t hold the same gravitas as Clive Owen (who played Dwight in SIN CITY).   I do have a feeling that people will appreciate this sequel/ prequel more once they watch it on DVD/ Blu-ray back-to-back with SIN CITY.  

 

Four stories make up the sequel (JUST ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT, THE LONG BAD NIGHT, A DAME TO KILL FOR, and NANCY’S LAST DANCE) and characters like Marv (Mickey Rourke who was made to play this character) and Nancy show up in more than one story.   Marv plays lose with reality while Nancy loses her grip on reality and Dwight learns he can’t trust someone from his past.  Then you have the story of one of bastard son of Senator Roark who has one really bad night courtesy of his dad.  It is a potent cocktail of comic book visuals (straight from Frank Miller’s SIN CITY comics) and film noir.   I do wish there would be another SIN CITY movie, but I think the box office has nixed that idea (unless foreign box office and Blu-ray/ DVD sales do really well).   This SIN CITY is becoming the great SIN CITY movie no one is watching in theaters which is a shame since A DAME TO KILL FOR flows better than the first SIN CITY movie.  Its mix of Frank Miller style graphics and film noir makes this one potent mix that I wish didn’t take so long for them to make another one.

 

This review is ©9-2-2014 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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