Sin City : A Dame to Kill For

Let me start off by sharing with you my love for all things Jessica Alba. When Dark Angel first came out in the early Noughts, my roommate and I literally ran to the television every Monday night at 8 to watch it (this is back before everyone had DVR), and I would sing this stupid little Dark Angel song that I had written myself. Now before you freak out, it was only three words long, so I wasn't that big of a freak but just know that it was unbelievably fresh. Anyway, she was so hot back then that we even hated Metroboy (Michael Weatherly) because she wanted him on the show and in real life too apparently. That bastard! But as the years passed and she married that scrub Cash Warren, she got a little older and had children; leading to her awkward and not quite as hot mom days. It didn't matter to me however, I still saw all of the horrible movies that she made even during this little weird period of her life. Thankfully though, it didn't last that long and she is back to being the sexy phenom that she was always meant to be. And if I were Cash Warren I'd be on the lookout for a scrawny black guy wearing a Muse t-shirt and a grey hoodie because he's coming for you! Not really, I'd get winded after running 20 feet.

The point of all of this is, is it's ridiculous to me that she plays a stripper in both Sin City movies and she never gets naked in either one of them. I mean, don't you think her loyal fans deserve at least one nipple at this point? I'm not being greedy! She can just look at Carla Gugino and Regina King for inspiration, they both hooked us up with images that will last a lifetime! Just marinate on it for a bit Jessica, that's all I'm asking.

Well thankfully in Sin City : A Dame to Kill For, Eva Green (forever the crowd pleaser) and Juno Temple step up to the plate! Green is naked in every movie she's in except for the stupid PG-13 Bond movie, and this is why I'll pay to see her recite Kobe Bryant's horrible poetry on screen for three hours if Hollywood asked me to. And Juno obviously read my mind as she provided me with a unexpected surprise in her odd scene at the beginning of the movie.

Now the movie starts off with Marv (Mickey Rourke) waking up on the side of the road next to these two wrecked cars with no idea how he got there. But as things start to come back to him, you see Marv basically being Marv; looking for a fight and finding one with these awful frat boys who are lighting homeless men on fire simply because they're bored. Next thing you know, there are car chases, guns going off, and arrows being shot! A pretty fresh way to start off the first 5 minutes of your movie.

From there you are introduced to the other story lines which include Johhny (Gordon-Levitt), one of the luckiest and most skilled men you'll ever see on the slots or the tables. He seems hell bent on beating and embarrassing Senator Roark in front of his friends by taking his money. When he does however, it leads to Roark using all of his resources to exact revenge on him; and if you know anything about the Roark family, they do far worse things to you than simply killing you. You are then introduced to Ava (Eva Green), the apparent damsel in distress who has this tight hold over Dwight (Josh Brolin). She pleads to him for his help, telling him that her life is in danger; and against his better judgement he falls for it and proceeds to recruit Marv to help him save her life. He, like most men, is blinded by her beauty and charms and cant seem to think clearly; and as you can imagine this leads to his possible demise. And lastly, there is still poor Nancy (Alba) who cant seem to get over losing the love of her life Hartigan (Willis), so she is drowning herself in alcohol and plotting a way to kill Senator Roarke; the man responsible for his death. Overall some pretty dark and depressing story lines.

The movie is similar in tone to the first one with it's over the top noir; the characters make these exaggerated movements in almost every scene and every character is seemingly infected with the city's evil nature. And I love this by the way, it's like the entire film was made specifically for Nic Cage to star in. Sadly however, he didn't make an appearance. You can't help but giggle at a few of the scenes but overall the style seems to work. But the problem is, it's not as fun or as polished as the first one was and ultimately that was its downfall. While Brolin was good, he didn't quite portray the coolness of Dwight like Clive Owen and his British accent did. And when it came time for his plastic surgery to change his appearance, they just simply gave him a wig. It was so stupid! He looked exactly the same! Would it have hurt to have someone else play his role in the scenes that followed? I mean, you changed the actor from the previous movie, why not do the same in this film? It's not like we got that attached to the Brolin; this would've been the perfect spot for Cage! Whatever, yet another missed opportunity. And even though I love him as an actor, Gordon-Levitt's story was pretty useless. The only good thing it had going for it is that involved Christopher Lloyd and I will never complain about that.

The women are all beautiful in it and Eva Green walks around completely naked for at least 10 minutes of the movie. So when you get bored, you at least have that to wake you up. Marv is usual awesome self as he destroys everything in his path. But Dennis Haysberth didn't quite work as the new Manute; he was nowhere near as imposing as Michael Clarke Duncan was! Lastly, this movie needed more Miho doing fresh things with blades. She's basically in it for 3 minutes.

Overall I was entertained, it just seemed like they rushed to get this one done, even though it had been 9 years since the last one. I give it a rating of kind of WEAK but still suggest you check it out to support the genre.