What do you do on a Sunday when you have nothing to do? Sit around the house, play video games or do something with the family? Well since I didn't want to be home or play any video games cause for some reason I haven't been too thrilled to want to game with anyone or play any games. And since my wife and kids were at a friends birthday party I was home alone and I wanted to go see a movie. So I got in the car and headed to the movie theater, shot the shit with a friend who works there and then made my way to the theater itself. Now I had my choice of movies to see yesterday.
Ninja Turtles. Couldn't family wants to see that together.
Into The Storm. Couldn't youngest daughter wants to see that with me.
Guardians of the Galaxy. Want to see it again but wanted to see something else comics related. What's this? Sin City came out on Friday? Why the hell not. I'm game to see the sequel to Sin City since I loved it but boy was I wrong. I guess the fan boy inside of me got a little to excited when I first heard about this movie back in 2006 but it sat and languished for nearly 9 years. Hell I think the excitement back then had me cause Angelina Jolie was attached but her pregnancy at the time was rumor for Rodriguez to delay filming but then over the years Jolie became a rumor as well as Salma Hayek, Rose McGowan, and Rachel Weisz. But in 2013 Eva Green had snagged the role from all her competitors.
Well due to it taking 9 years for this film to make it to the screen some changes had to be made to the cast from the first film. First it was Devon Aoki who couldn't reprise her role of Miho due to her second pregnancy had to let her role go to Jamie Chung. Another would be due to the death of Michael Clark Duncan who sadly passed away from complications due to a heart attack he suffered in July of 2012. His role of Manute was re-casted 3 months after his death and given to Dennis Haysbert. And though Michael Madsen was rumored to return to his role of Bob, the cop partner of Bruce Willis' Hartigan his role was re-casted and given to Jeremy Piven. But the stand out recast was Josh Brolin taking over the role of Dwight from Clive Owen but this was done to fit the comics storyline as Dwight would have to have facial surgery during A Dame to Kill For to appear differently in "The Big Fat Kill" story in Sin City.
Now I didn't at first allow this 9 year gap between both films and that I didn't know before hand that two of the stories for the film were written by Frank Miller specifically for the film, bother me at first cause I was like what's the worst that could go wrong here. Well lets say age is definitely catching up to Mickey Rourke, even under so much make-up as Marv you can easily tell that time is not on his side at all cause if part of this film was set a prequel then he sure as hell doesn't look any younger than he did when he was Marv in the first film. So right off the bat I'm shaking my head cause its clear that at 61 this movie should have been made in 2007 rather than 2014. But anyway the beginning of the film kicks off in ass kicking fashion as Marv tries to recollect his thoughts and memories as to what has happened to him and why he is surrounded by death and destruction while overlooking the projects of Basin City. This is the first story of 4 in the film and it fits the mold of a fast and typical opening sequence that did little to nothing for me but laugh only at the very end of it when he tries to remember where he got his coat from.
After that I was hoping for something at least interesting well the only good part of the whole movie and I say that cause its the only story in the whole movie that I actually liked. "The Long Bad Night" which was broken into two parts but in my opinion could have easily been the whole movie all I cared about cause it seemed to be the best one. Now its not cause I am kissing Joseph Gordon-Levitt's ass since he's been on a role in the past few years but the guy can play a character you can easily get behind.
In this one he plays a cocky gambler who arrives in Sin City and heads to Kadie's looking for the backroom poker game that is held there. After winning enough money from the slots he makes his way back there and face off with Senator Roark , whose played again by Powers Booth. After a few hands and taking as much money as he can from the Senator. He's warned to get the hell out of dodge but refuses to do so cause he wants to take some random chick he just met in the bar out on the town at the expense of those he won the money from. This is where shit happens, he kicks the shit out of two goons, get forced to go for a ride and has his hand broken for taking the money and not leaving. He's left to suffer and vows revenge. Now that's where the story ends and goes off into the main story "A Dame to Kill For" which we see Josh Brolin as Dwight playing private dick and taking pictures of a philandering businessman whose banging a prostitute while married. Oh businessman is played by Ray Liotta and the prostitute payed by Juno Temple.
But this all leads to Dwight kicking this guys ass and saving the girl from being murdered. He gives the photos he took to the person he was working for and then goes home where he gets a call from his former lover Ava Lord who sounded desperate but she convinces him to meet her at Kadie's and he falls for it, he meets her there and she tells him an elaborate story of how her husband is a madman who has some kind of sick sex fetish to watch her suffer bodily harm. He allows himself to be suckered into this situation and goes to her home and sneaks in the first time and gets his ass handed to him by Manute. He recovers and figures he needs muscle for this guy so he recruits Marv for the job. They go back and cause all kinds of hell and Dwight manages to confront Damien Lord only to discover he was set up and that's when shit falls apart for him. He's saved by Marv and the story jumps what could be either days, weeks or months no one really knows with this shit cause its not explained. But we know Ava is banging the detective played by Chris Meloni whose jealousy causes him to lose his family and finally snap and kill his partner. I'll let you figure that part out for yourself. Dwight shows up changed and Ava has aligned herself with crime boss Wallenquist whose played by Stacy Keach under ALOT of make-up.
Well anyway after Dwight's arrival back to Sin City we are given a backstory on Miho and how she came to be and who she had to thank for saving her life and she joins him and Gail on a mission to kill Ava once and for all. This story was good but to me seemed like it was a little too long and really didn't need to see certain things that happened. But it is what it is so I guess I had to deal with it. This led right back to "The Long Bad Night" where we see Johnny forgot to mention his name earlier for some reason, trying to find a doctor to fix his hand so he can exact his revenge after giving up forty bucks and his shoes to a heroin using doctor whose played by Christopher Lloyd. Yes! Doc Brown is in SIN CITY folks!!!!! Oh and we get a Lady Gaga cameo as she plays a waitress who gives Johnny a dollar. I guess she's gonna be the new Rose McGowan in whatever movie Rodriguez is going to do from here on out. But Johnny makes his way back to Kadie's after turning his dollar into more money and buys his way back into Roark's game after a history lesson we learn who Johnny really and what his ultimate fate would be.
Now the end of the movie is nearing and the final story is a tie-in to the "Yellow Bastard" story from the first film. Entitled "Nancy's Last Dance" the story is set four years after the events of the "Yellow Bastard" story. Nancy is falling apart due to Hartigan's death and has her sight set on killing the only man responsible for her pain that being Senator Roark. Bruce Willis' cameos in this story as the ghost of Hartigan as he tries to tell her to keep her shit together but to no avail she snaps and goes over the edge as her hunger for revenge drives her to disfigure herself and cut off her hair. She gets Marv to help her now this is where my confusion happened as I tried to piece together this timeline of event between this and the first movie and I was lost. I vaguely remember what happens in the books but I even tried to get a friend to help but to no avail we couldn't figure it out together. Anyway the last story comes off like your typical 80's revenge film ala a splash of Lady Terminator meets Bride of Frankenstein.
I have no clue why I blended those two films together but if you smashed the characters together from them you get this version of Nancy and the movie ends after she gets what she's after for. Theres no extra scenes for this film so there's no clue if there's going to be a third film but after its horrendous box office bombing as it came in 8th on its opening weekend it may be another 10 years before we see a third Sin City by then the children of these actors will more likely be in their respective parents roles. Now after all that I couldn't help but shake my head in disappointment cause I was a fan of the first film and hoping the second would be at least as good as it was but for it to fall flat and not give me anything more than confusion and a waste of a decent cast. The only thing that saved the credits was the song by Rodriguez and Steven Tyler. Do I Say go see it? That's up to you. But take it from I would wait til this hits either blu ray or cable television.
reviewed by Bucky S.
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