“This rotten town… it soils everybody.”

Justin’s rating: Can’t we all just get along? Maybe have a hug circle?

Justin’s review: When Sin City came out in 2005, it absolutely bowled over the Mutant staff with its highly stylized film noir setting and slavish devotion to Frank Miller’s graphic novels. It was a rollicking good time, albeit a very adult one, and we hoped that there would be more tales from the partnership of Miller and director Robert Rodriguez. Yet when a sequel finally did arise nine years later, it was virtually a non-starter and a box office bomb. So was it a terrible movie, were audiences over their flash-in-the-pan fascination for this storytelling, or did it come out at a bad time?

That’s what I wanted to get to the bottom of, so I rapped my knuckles purposefully on the desk, bit into a stick of gum like it had personally offended me, and sat through Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

One thing I can say for certain, it’s not because this sequel was lacking in name-brand actors. On the contrary, it’s positively stuffed with them: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe, Jaime King, Josh Brolin, Bruce Willis, Stacy Keach, Christopher Lloyd, Ray Liotta, and so many, many more. And it brings back that visually arresting black-and-white comic book style that makes it hard to look away.

Like the first movie, A Dame to Kill For interweaves several tales of betrayal, revenge, and buried secrets in the seedy underbelly of an already seedy city. While the good guys aren’t that virtuous, they’re saints in comparison to some of these lowlifes. There’s a gambler looking to shame a powerful senator, a dancer hoping to revenge Bruce Willis from the first flick, and a private eye falling into the clutches of a femme fatale.

The tropes and style of film noir endure because they are so dang cool and easy to transplant to new times and settings. We’ve seen it clean, and we’ve seen it dirty, and we’ve seen it clever. Another question is, which one is this?

If you ask me — and you have by reading this — it’s none of it. The first Sin City was quite brutal but balanced things out with sympathetic protagonists and pretty interesting tales. Here, the protagonists aren’t that admirable at all and the central story (the titular Dame to Kill For) is weirdly bad and long and full of the dumbest characters ever. I know they’ve got to lean into the tropes, but this shows how easy it is to tip from homage and into unintentional parody.

Sometimes a sequel only proves how hard it was to get that “special sauce” right the first time. So in a way, it bestows a back-handed blessing to make us appreciate even more.

But sometimes a sequel also makes us see the first movie in a more clear light. Was Sin City every that good to begin with? I’m not quite as sure any more. Just as how the characters of this movie keep getting suckered in by a pretty face, maybe we’re a little too impressed sometimes by a slick style that’s covering a whole lot of ugliness.

All I know is that it probably wasn’t a shrewd idea for this movie to be made.

Intermission!

• “I’ve gone and done something again. I wish I could remember what.”
• “Nothing wrong with killing them. Hell, it’s practically my civic duty.”
• He’s really good with coins. Better with cards.
• “I can’t protect you.” “Then why are you a cop?”
• The sparing use of color, especially with the girls’ hair
• “Any physical contest between us will only have one outcome.”
• “Never let the monster out.”
• “Pavement rushes up to give me a big sloppy kiss.”
• “She owns me. Body and soul.”
• “So I’m using him. So what?”
• Marv wearing the hat made me chuckle.
• Don’t ask Marv to pull over when you’re on a motorcycle.
• The golden eye is pretty intimidating.
• “The bathing was never about bathing. It was about theater.”
• You can jump up out of a skylight to decapitate four guys
• $40 gets you a bullet
• “I’m ambidextrous.”