MOVIE REVIEW: Sin City — A Dame to Kill For (2014)

When most people think of comic book movies, they think of movies like Marvel’s The Avengers, WandaVision, Wonder Woman, and the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League. I think of those too, but I also think of movies where the art direction eliminates confusion about what you’re watching —not a film loosely based on the comic book work and made realistic, but a movie made to look like a comic or cartoon: films like the Wachowski’s Speed Racer, Ang Lee’s HULK, the Warren Beatty star-vehicle Dick Tracy, and the films based on the comics written and drawn by Irish comics auteur Frank Miller. You’ve heard of them at some point: Sin City, 300, Holy Terror, The Dark Knight Returns, and even Marvel’s Daredevil. If you haven’t heard of Holy Terror, thank your lucky stars — that’s a whole other article.

This movie had a lot of variant posters. ABOVE: Frank Miller the Director.

When the 2014 sequel to Sin City called Sin City: A Dame to Kill For came out, I had some questions about the dangling story threads left behind in the original 2005 film. It’s been nearly a decade since we last saw survivors Nancy, Dwight, Miho, Gail, and the other working girls of Oldtown; what happened? The answer is: A WHOLE LOT. The world had changed since the original came out, especially in light of the sexual assaults allegedly perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein — the lead producer at Miramax Films (the production company responsible for the Sin City film IP). The #Gamergate and #MeToo movements were taking off from the works of Tarana Burke (NOT Alyssa Milano), Anita Sarkeesian, and others. Incels and White supremacists were trending in opposition to everything that did not center or cater to them, Black and brown people were dying here in America and abroad via extrajudicial authoritarian police actions, and Frank Miller had shot himself in the foot and the hand that fed him with his radical ideas on select subjects (American right-wing politics, changing gender/sexual norms, the War on Terror). Despite the chicanery, both he and Robert Rodriguez (director of the Spy Kids series) were allowed to make this film. Given the content and the environment, I completely understand why the movie was made. But that doesn’t mean it should have been — especially because of the ENDING.

Femme-fatale Ava (played by Eva Green) is normally shot in black and white except for her red lips. When things get hairy, the lighting department uses the starlight setting and the character’s eyes take on a green color. This woman is LITERALLY the Devil.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is not a direct sequel, but floats before AND after the original at different times to visit different stories. The mentally-ill street sentinel Marv (played by Mickey Rourke, Johnny Handsome, Iron Man 2) is back, though he died in the original. Dwight is now played by Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, Avengers: Infinity War) to represent the face he replaced in the original movie, with Gail (Rosario Dawson, Top Five, KIDS [1995], Clerks II) and the girls of Oldtown returning. Powers Boothe (Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD [TV]) returns as the cruel Senator Roark, still lamenting the death of his evil son at the hands of Hartigan. Speaking of, Hartigan (Bruce Willis, Hudson Hawk, The Fifth Element) is still dead and watching over Nancy (Jessica Alba, Dark Angel [TV], Machete, Idle Hands). New characters like femme fatale Ava (Eva Green, 300: Rise of an Empire, Dark Shadows, Casino Royale [2006]), Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt, Don Jon, Looper), Marcie (Julia Garner, Ozark [TV]), and Dr. Kroenig (Christopher Lloyd, the Back to the Future trilogy) each show up in their own way to be part of the proceedings to tell the following stories:

• “Just Another Saturday Night”: Marv beats up punks in the street and kills them, trying to remember where he got his coat and gloves. The nights bleed together, where he can't tell them apart. Neither will the audience.
• "The Long Bad Night”: Lucky gambler Johnny comes to Sin City to win big. He beats Senator Roark — the power behind Sin City — in poker. Twice. Bad things happen to Johnny, but not before Lady Gaga gives him a dollar.
• "A Dame to Kill For”: We learn why Dwight got his face changed — a whole-ass adventure involving his alluring ex-girlfriend, a blue-clad devil-woman named Ava. Marv utters the titular line.
• "Nancy’s Last Dance”: Hartigan watches from beyond the grave as Nancy descends into alcoholism and madness over him — her lost love . She vows revenge on Senator Roark, father of the Yellow Bastard, and seeks it out.

Gambler Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) looks down on Basin City as a mark. but he’s about to lose big.

CHOICE CUTS (SPOILERS AHEAD):

• I’m pretty sure Jessica Alba deserves an Oscar for her performance in this movie. It is second to Kate Beckinsale’s performance in The Disappointments Room, but it IS good.
• The music cues for Marv are AMAZING. All crazy acid jazz sax, all the time.
• I’ll never stop looking at the beautiful Rosario Dawson, especially when she’s photographed in black and white.
• The character Ava literally HAS to be the Devil.
• The music created by Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler for this movie — “Skin City” — was pitch perfect for the environment: a honky-tonk titty dive bar.
• Directors for this movie make a cameo in the bar: Roberto Rodriguez and Frank Miller.
• In light of Bruce Willis’ aphasia diagnosis, you’d never know he had it here.
• The action sequences can be repetitive. Based on the Wikipedia article, the phrase “Marv and [insert character name here] mount an assault on [insert villain name here]’s compound” appears one too many times.
• Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU [TV]) and Marton Csokas (Xena: Warrior Princess [TV], XXX [2002]) were wasted in this film. Jeremy Piven (Entourage [HBO]) was not: he made an amazing turn as Detective Bob, the only person in Sin City PD with any sense in his head. Shame how he ended up with all that sense splattered through the back of his head…
• The scene between Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, No Escape) and Juno Temple (Maleficent, The Other Boleyn Girl, Black Mass) was very tense, because both of them made a lot of sense. I side with both of them.
• The character of Manute was played by Dennis Haysbert (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century [TV], the Allstate insurance company commercials voice) in the wake of the death of the original actor, Michael Clarke Duncan (Stephen King’s The Green Mile).
• The character of Miho was played by actress Jamie Chung (Sucker Punch, MTV’s The Real World 14: San Diego [TV]) when the original actress Devon Aoki (DEBS, 2 Fast 2 Furious) quit acting to go be a mom. This is news to me, as I thought she left to take over the Benihana empire from her deceased father, founder Rocky Aoki.
• Concerning Jamie Chung’s Miho, the performance was OK — while she was able to kill several men by turning into a very sexy Cuisinart, when she chooses not to emote it’s just not the same. Also, makeup needs to fuckin’ cool it with the eyeliner wings — she could fly with those.
• Backstory on Miho was VERY nice to see.
• THE ENDING WAS VERY BAD. After all that build-up for Nancy, we don’t see the resolution — we are left to assume what happened next. That’s the part about that bugs me.