Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

Producers: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, et al.

Directors: Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller

Rated: R for strong brutal stylized violence throughout, sexual content, nudity, and brief drug use

Runtime: 102 min

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

I operate under no illusions that the original Sin City was some sort of masterpiece. It entertained me, and brought stories I'd only previously seen on the page to the big screen, it did so in a stylized way that we hadn't really seen before.

Maybe that novelty has worn off. Maybe Frank Miller had more of a hand in directing this iteration of Sin City than he had before. Maybe this is just the product of another Robert Rodriguez stumble, he seems to open series with a bang, and then they languish and putter out as he goes forward. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what caused this film not to work, but it doesn't work. Eva Green, Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all do decent enough jobs with the roles they're given, but the spectacle around them seems flat and lifeless.

We were told that before this movie came out Frank Miller would be publishing new stories in the Sin City universe, and yet here we are on opening weekend and those stories are no where to be found. After having seen what those stories might've been I'm left wondering if they'd have made better graphic novels, and I think the answer is no. They just weren't very good stories. The A Dame to Kill For section of the movie was the strongest part of the film, but it was bookended by weaker stories, which pulled the whole movie down as a result.

Conclusion: A swing and a miss for this directorial duo. Decent performances can't outweigh this movie's tendency to feel dull and pointless. It's almost as if Rodriguez and Miller got so caught up in ramping up the stylistic side of things so much, they forgot what makes a good story.

Rating: 4.5/10