Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

I think I am at a little bit of an advantage because most people who are a fan of the Sin City franchise watched the first film back in 2005 and had to wait ten years for the sequel. I only had to wait a couple of months.

If you'll recall, I was kind of lukewarm about the first Sin City movie overall. I think its a beautifully shot movie with some interesting stories, but at the end of the day, its a movie I saw and will probably never see again. However, I liked it just enough to feel like I wanted to see the second one to compare and decide if it was a movie worth making a sequel for.

A Dame to Kill For follows the same formula from the first movie. You have a couple of stories that sort of connect, probably more in this movie than they did in the last film. But the overall thing that connects them all is that they are set in the hell hole that is Sin City. And I'm glad they didn't try and play it off like it was Basin City, no they just called it Sin City.

In A Dame to Kill For, you have a number of characters that were in the first movie like Marve (played by Mickey Rourke) Nancy (played by Jessica Alba), and Bruce Willis plays the ghost of his character from the first film. But at the same time you have new characters like Joseph Gordon Levitt who is a gambler, or Josh Brolin and his noir style relationship with Eva Green, the Dame to Kill For.

So what's the difference?

Well first off, the visuals, in my opinion, are not as good as they were in the first movie.

That's not me saying that they aren't good, I just don't think they are as memorable. I just remember sitting through the first Sin City and not being the most enthralled with the story but finding it impossible to deny that the visualizations were just beautiful.

Maybe its just me getting used to the style and the novelty of it wearing off, but I didn't find the visuals quite as intriguing as they were before.

What I did find more interesting though were the stories. I thought the characters were a little more developed and interesting in this film than they were in the last film.

However, even though that is the case, the pacing in this film is actually kind of awful. I was watching the section of the movie based off the title all about Josh Brolin and Eva Green and I realized that I was only 40 minutes into the movie. I felt like The Dame to Kill For could have been its own movie and it was paced like it was going to be.

On top of that, it just wasn't as gritty as I remember the first Sin City being. A Dame to Kill For is more of a classic noir story, which can be okay, but it doesn't exactly fit with the weird and comic book feel that the first Sin City provided.

What this movie did provide however was Eva Green being a stone cold fox.

The truth is, I'm never going to complain when Eva Green is on screen and she's looking fine. However, if you're asking me if this storyline is all that good, I'm probably going to say no.

I did like The Dame to Kill For storyline, I just thought it was all together too long and should have probably been its own movie.

The other storylines are good in their own right. But again, the pacing is very off. Either it goes by really fast or it goes by all together too slow. Joseph Gordon Levitt's piece, all together too fast. Jessica Alba as Nancy, all together too slow.

Overall, I'm not totally sure how much effort was really put into Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. While the story was a little bit more character driven and developed them as much as they could, I felt the visuals, the pacing, and just overall, a lot more effort was put into the first movie. A Dame to Kill for feels more like a cheap retread of the first movie than it does an actual sequel that takes what the first movie provided and expands on it.

Maybe I'm being too harsh because I bet if someone watched A Dame to Kill For without watching the first Sin City, they would have thought it was really good. But I just came out of A Dame to Kill For, not feeling the same I did about the original. I felt it was too generic and mainstream as opposed to the weird comic book movie I saw a couple months ago.

The truth is I'm not really a fan of either movie. This is more of a personal thing but like the first one, I'm probably not going to watch A Dame to Kill For again. The difference is that I finished Sin City recognizing the visual masterpiece that it is and while I didn't care for it myself, I understand why people would love it. Again, perhaps this is because I already have that experience in my head that A Dame to Kill For was such a bland experience in comparison. I think there are some valid things about A Dame to Kill For and its not a horrible movie, I just think a sequel that takes 10 years to be released after its original is either in development for so long because something good is in the works, or they just wanted to get it off the slate and they put it out the best they could. I think the latter is what happened with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Those are my thoughts on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Let me know what you think? Am I being too hard on this sequel? Did you like it more or less than the original Sin City? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Just for the hell of it, here's ACDC and their music video of their song Sin City. Enjoy!