Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
Director:
Frank Miller
Cast:
Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon Lewitt, Eva Green
Rating:
3.5/5 One of the most-awaited sequels (after The Incredibles, of course), this one took nine years to come along. And to put it in one of Josh Brolin’s dialogues from the movie, "She is worth the wait".
Replete with all the trademark Frank Miller-esque gruesome graphics and ‘badass’ characters, Sin City 2 has everything, and more, of what we expected from it. Even the actors, from Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Powers Boothe are in the same mood, and the new ones -- Eva Green, Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon Lewitt -- only add to the assorted platter.
Before we begin with another panegyric in the movie’s glory, here is the plot:
The theme is somewhat the same, three stories of Sin City’s most rough citizens run parallel for a big part of the movie, running into one-another at crucial moment. There is Marv (Mickey Rourke) who doesn’t really have a mission of his own like last time but makes other characters’ drive for vengeance his own from time to time. We have Dwight (Josh Brolin) so deeply and twisted-ly in love with Ava (Eva Green) that he is ready to ‘kill for the dame’ against his better judgment as she has not proven to be the most honest of women in the past. He makes it his job to free this damsel in distress from the clutches of her evil husband and is helped on by Marv when things go wrong.
There is also the master of playing-cards, Johnny (Joseph Gordon Lewitt) who takes on a fight with the worst opponent possible, the much-maligned Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) after he wins a game of poker against him. The Senator is after his life to teach him a lesson on ‘power’ and who really has it. And of course, the lesson includes many bones being broken and many legs being shot.
The third story is of Nancy Calahan (Jessica Alba), struggling to come to terms with the suicide of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), and has now made revenge her life’s aim. She has been training hard to kill the Senator who brought this hell upon her, only she cannot not find the courage to do it. She is helped on by our friendly-neighborhood man-slaughterer Marv.
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Sin City 2's story is simpler than last time, one reason why you may find the sequel pale in comparison with the first one. So much so that you may feel it's been 'dumbed down' to an extent. For first-time watchers, however, it’s one-and-a-half hour of pure pleasure.
Like the first one, the graphics for this one too are amazing, only accentuated by 3D technology. There is no let-up on blood and gore, though, with throats getting sliced by the deadly, sword-slinging Miho. There is more of the same: smashed skulls (reminded us of Oberyn Martell and The Mountain…), broken bones or skin slashed with glass... And then you have the eyes: they are gorged out with bare hands, shot with bullets, pierced by arrows... even smashed in with punches. Not a good day for eyes we think.
After all the controversy the movie and Eva Green’s poster garnered for the nudity, the censor board wasn’t forgiving either. A good scene of consequence was mercilessly edited out to make it fitting for the audiences of an already (A) certified movie. The disappointment was huge in the theatre, mostly for the lost opportunity of seeing Eva Green at her …ahem… best but also for missing a crucial scene. But worry not, all was not lost. The movie made complete sense even after all the cruel editing. It is very rarely that we see good sequels and this one is not to be missed.
Watch trailer: