Alex Moss EditorNearly nine years after the original film was released Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For has been a long time in the pipeline. At one point it was slated to star Angelina Jolie in the title role, a part that only she could seemingly play. That is until you see Eva Green in the role. Because while most of Sin City 2 is almost identical to the first film, Green manages to find ways to lift it out of the gutter that is Basin City.
This time we follow four key characters; Marv (Mickey Rourke) as he takes revenge on some nasty frat boys, Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) as he learns that beating the wrong person in a hand of poker in Sin City can land you in hot water, Dwight (Josh Brolin) as he becomes embroiled in a plot involving his former lover Ava (Eva Green) and finally Little Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) still haunted by her protector from the first film Hartigan (Bruce Willis) and desperate to have revenge on Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) for what he did to her guardian angel.
What you loved about the first Sin City is still very much present and correct. That homage-come-pastiche to Film Noir is writ large and wonderfully plays on the look, tone and context of that most popular genre of the ‘40s and ‘50s. In this world the men are hard-boiled, drink swilling, graveled-voiced raging balls of violence and yet the women are more deadly than the men by using their feminine wiles and sultry looks.
The only drawback here is you feel like you’ve seen it all before with the first film. There’s little here to get you giddy like the first did with its comic book come-to-life look and feel. It still has that but it doesn’t have the impact from before.
That said, while all the performances are enjoyable, Eva Green is nothing short of stunning. Fast becoming the Jessica Rabbit of Frank Miller’s world, having seemingly escaped from his graphic novel pages and also starred in 300: Rise Of An Empire, she is a hugely magnetic presence for her segment of the film. She possesses that siren-esque femme fatal charm that would have made Barbara Stanwyck and Rita Hayworth puff smoke and gently applaud at her irresistible seduction techniques.
Very much more of the same but Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For has an ace up the sleeve in Eva Green’s captivating performance.
