Sin City:
In Basin "Sin" City, a hellish and corrupt cesspool in the middle of a desert, three stories unfold: Marv, a slightly deranged hulk of an ex-con, seeks vengeance after a prostitute who treated him kindly and gave him the best sex he's ever had, is murdered and he is framed for it, and Marv ends up uncovering a giant web of corruption. Dwight, a troubled criminal who has recently undergone extensive facial reconstruction, hunts down his friend-with-benefits' abusive and crazy boyfriend, but then he gets in over his head when this hunt sparks a turf war between two criminal organizations. And finally, John Hartigan, one of the few honest detectives in Sin City, who is nearing retirement, decides to save a little girl named Nancy from a sadistic and manipulative serial rapist/killer who preys on young girls. The catch: the killer always gets away with it because he's the son of a powerful and ruthless senator named Roarke. Hartigan decides to not kill the child murderer, but mutilate him by blowing off his ear, genitals, and hand with his pistol. Hartigan is gunned down and imprisoned for eight years for this, before he is finally lured out when he thinks that the now-grown up Nancy is in danger from a yellow-skinned assassin hired by the Roarke family as payback.
This movie may sound a little weird on paper, but it's a feast for the eyes and an entertaining and stylized comic book noir thriller. Some people might not dig the over-stylized look and violence, or not get that some parts of the film are supposed to be intentionally tongue-in-cheek, but I think the unique visuals and well-written stories will be enough to captivate most people.
The cast is huge for a two-hour film, and it's filled to the brim with stars: Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Nick Offerman, Marley Shelton, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Devon Aoki, and Alexis Bledel. Frank Miller (who serves as writer and co-director) cameos as a priest. The stand-out is Rourke, who embodies the essence of the character Marv, and goes through a complete physical transformation.
The movie has amazing special effects, having adapted the comic book word for word, panel for panel (although this sometimes creates some clunky-sounding dialogue), and Robert Rodriguez certainly has an eye for detail and a certain visual flair to his work. Quentin Tarantino "guest-directs" one scene, which is by far one of the best scenes in the second segment, and is actually kind of eerie.
Rodriguez also scored the movie, and it has a sound that perfectly fits the tone and look of the movie. Rodriguez also edited the film himself, which I have to respect.
Sin City deserves the acclaim: it's probably the most faithful comic book adaptation of all time, and is well-written, perfectly cast (for the most part), and has memorable and unique visuals that show how much you can do with digital film-making. 4.5/5 stars.
Sin City, A Dame to Kill For:
(SPOILERS FOR FIRST FILM AHEAD)
This installment has three more yarns from Sin City: Dwight, angrier and pre-plastic surgery, is lured back into a relationship with the manipulative femme fatale Ava Lord, Dwight's ex-lover, who tells him she needs saving from her abusive husband and his towering manservant Manute, an articulate and polite but brutally violent enforcer, but Dwight soon finds out there's more to this damsel-in-distress story than he knows. Johnny, an exceptionally lucky young gambler, has just rolled into town and challenges several of the city's key figures to an underground poker match, including corrupt police Commissioner Liebowitz (Jude Ciccolella, returning from the first film) and Senator Roarke, and Johnny learns a harrowing lesson in power. And lastly, Nancy, having become depressed since Hartigan's suicide at the end of his story, is an alcoholic wreck who plans her revenge of Roarke, while Hartigan's ghost helplessly watches from the side.
I was honestly a little disappointed with this one. After almost a decade of waiting, I expected a little more from this movie. The latter two stories aren't based on any comics, despite the abundance of Sin City stories out there, and were written for the movie, and Johnny is an original character. The "Dame to Kill For" segment took up most of the run time, being the main story, but was not the best executed or even most interesting. The best one by far was also the shortest and darkest: the Johnny story, and that one had the saddest yet most satisfying ending, and the success was partially due to both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Powers Boothe's performances. The Nancy story was by far the worst, and you can tell it was just sort of shoved in there to tie to the first film.
The cast is still impressive, featuring Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Powers Boothe, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, Rosario Dawson, Jaime King, Stacy Keach, Juno Temple, Ray Liotta, Julia Garner, Christopher Lloyd, and Marton Csokas. Some replacement actors include Jeremy Piven, who replaces Michael Madsen, despite the fact that they look nothing alike; Dennis Haysbert, replacing Michael Clarke Duncan because he passed away a few years back, and his character was too big to scrap; and, of course, Josh Brolin, who replaces Clive Owen as Dwight because the character hasn't had facial reconstruction surgery yet. Rodriguez and Miller both make cameos on TV, Lady Gaga and Alexa Vega also have brief cameos. and Eva Green was a bit bad, I thought, because she over-acted a lot in this movie.
The visuals aren't as fresh as they used to be, and they seemed like they just sort of rushed this movie. The last story is sort of bland and uninteresting and the way it ends the film is awful. Even the end credits seem slightly half-assed.
Sin City: A Dame to Kill Form is worth checking out, but if you expect something on the level of the first film, you'll probably be disappointed. You can definitely see the lack in interest in making this one because the first film was a box office hit, while this one was #8 at the box office in it's opening Weekend. I just hope, on the off-chance they make a third film, or a TV shows or something, it will be better. 3/5 stars.
(Images: Wikipedia)YourMoviesSucks' funny and brief review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrtUi1a9qhY&list=UUSc16oMxxlcJSb9SXkjwMjA
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