So I just saw "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" and it was not all that great.
If I were to take a guess, I would say it's probably because the best stories in Sin City were used in the first movie.
I mean, I haven't read the graphic novel, but I really loved the first movie and found it to be entertaining and engaging.
The stories in the first movie worked together very well and it was easy to care about the characters and their struggles.
And although there were intentionally ridiculous and comedic moments,
there was so much weight and consequence to be observed that things were still able to be delivered in a way that we could take them seriously.
Not only that, but the stylization was used to help better deliver the tone and story.
Now unfortunately, for "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For", it felt a little bit more like style over story.
It was weird watching so many moments where you could tell the film
and the soundtrack expect you to care about what's happening in front of you,
but at points where nothing has been done to make you care.
The film would insist that what I'm seeing is important, but you can't just tell your audience members how to feel.
The movie felt so incredibly forced in a way that almost feels like they had no intention to make it when they were making the first movie.
Interestingly enough, half of the story didn't even come from the comic books and were written for the movie itself.
One of the stories being Joseph Gordon-Levitt's, which I found to be probably the best one.
And the other one being an embarassingly self-referential follow-up to the "That Yellow Bastard" story,
wherein we see an untentionally comedic delivery of Nancy's fall into depression,
while Bruce Willis is a ghost and he just hangs around in the background talking about how disappointed he is that she's not very happy.
"Nancy, stop! Stop doing this to yourself! Stop it! What are you gonna be upset about?
Just because I'm dead and you have no idea I'm still here watching you as a ghost doesn't mean that I don't still love you!"
The "main" story, "A Dame to Kill For" was one that was originally in the graphic novels,
but that one was also kind of unbearable. Eva Green's performance of her character was so incredibly overdramatic
that it not only came off as obnoxious but it was really difficult to take anything in her scenes seriously.
And heads up: I'm about to start spoiler talk, so skip to this part in the video before I finish counting down.
3, 2, 1: Bruce Willis is a ghost. Again.
I found the reveal of Eva Green's alterior motives to be insanely predictable and I haven't even read the graphic novels.
I guess this gives me even more respect for the first movie in choosing its stories wisely,
because even without the lackluster execution, this story just isn't all that great.
And going back to the Bruce Willis story, that is not how you end a fucking movie!
Nancy's about to get shot by senator Roark and then he looks in a mirror coincidentally
and sees the ghost of Bruce Willis behind him and gets distracted long enough that Nancy is able to kill him.
And somehow, they don't think that that's laughable?
You know, there's another movie where a ghost abruptly shows up to save the protagonist before they get shot.
It's a parody movie called "Black Dynamite" and they wrote it into the movie because it's fucking stupid.
"Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" apparently has not clued in on the fact that it's fucking stupid.
And then the movie ends within, like, twenty fucking seconds!
There's no resolution to the events that took place? You don't want to end it with, like, a short or something?
Nope! Movie's over, go home.
I found myself a little upset and distracted at the character pretending to be Michael Clarke Duncan, but ehhh what can you do.
Overall, this movie had a few cool shots and few good scenes, but its minor positives were cancelled out by its negatives.
From a purely enjoyment based standard it was alright. I mean, I've seen a lot of less entertaining movies in my life.
Now, I'm aware that some people will enjoy this movie and that's not a bad thing.
I'm only trying to tell you how I feel about the movie and not how you should feel about the movie.
I'd imagine many people will be able to watch this and leave the theater thinking it was good.
But I think pretty much all of us can agree that it's not as good as the first movie.
There was something so great about its execution that wasn't really matched in this movie at all.
And although I thought that some of the scenes and shots in this movie were pretty good,
the equal amount of negatives that cancelled those out makes me feel as though this movie deserves a five out of ten.
[Subtitles by Abel Boeschoten]