Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Dustin: 3 of 5 stars Nick: 2 of 5 stars Average: 2.5 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Nick: The Sin City sequel brought its unique visuals, but left behind its endearing characters and hilarious dialogue. It’s been over a week since I saw the movie and I hardly remember a thing about it. That is not a good sign. Put it this way, remembering quotes from movies is not my thing. Yet, I could quote most of the original Sin City. It’s sad for me to say that everything from the dialogue to the characters feels clunky and forced. Nothing comes off right. Instead of enjoying myself and laughing with the movie, I found myself laughing at it more often than not. There are two stories I could describe in a single sentence and another that I would have no idea how to describe. Therefore it’s pointless to give a description. Shit happens in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Dustin: I thought this was a fine movie for the most part. I think it suffered from having to follow the original, which was such a distinct movie. Tough act to follow. This felt sort of like a straight-to-video sequel to the first.

The movie basically had two plot lines. Eva Green plays against type as a woman named Ava, a manipulative femme fatale who uses Josh Brolin’s character to set up her husband’s death so she can inherit his fortune. The other plot line follows the various people who want to bring down a powerful and corrupt senator, including his illegitimate son (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the lover of a cop the senator killed (Jessica Alba).

I found the plot engaging and interesting. I liked the characters, especially Mickey Rourke. But the execution was a little clumsy, and it didn’t feel as well crafted as the first.

Nick: Did you know that Josh Brolin’s character was the same character that Clive Owen played in the original? Brolin plays Dwight before he has surgery and at the end all the make-up on Brolin’s face was to make him look like Clive Owen’s Dwight but ended up looking more like Marv (Mickey Rourke). The story lines were decent, but the way they were edited together made it hopeless. The original did a great job of this interweaving. Once again, the dialogue was one of the things that made me love the first Sin City while here it sounds so defeatist and depressing instead of fun and engaging, which is one of the reasons why I think so many critics are calling the film misogynistic. The first one was as well, but it was so silly and tongue-in-cheek it would be ridiculous to call it out, but now that the film has taken on more of a somber tone and has nary a laugh it’s more obvious and more unsettling.

Dustin: I only saw the first one once, shortly after it came to home video, so I only vaguely remember it. I’ll judge this movie on its own merit.

I also felt this one was depressing. I thought the dialogue was OK. It felt like an imitation of Jim Thompson. I won’t criticize it for that. I wish more writers would imitate the man who wrote the screenplay to Paths of Glory.

My criticism of the plot isn’t so much the way it wasn’t so interwoven. I did have a problem when the “Dame to Kill For” plotline ended, but the movie went on and on with the senator plot. That wasn’t so bad. At least it didn’t continue forever in a pointless direction like another movie we reviewed recently (Boyfood). But I didn’t like how the characters, especially Mickey Rourke and Jamie Chung (Miho) seemed to be invincible at times. It takes away tension when you know they will cut down their opponents without breaking a sweat.

Nick: I think all the problems here start and end with the writing, so I’m going to continue down that path. In Sin City, the three main characters are Dwight, Marv and Detective Hartigan. Dwight was the one who was between depressing and light, but was so charismatic all the depressing events he saw had a bit of levity with his hilarious insight. Marv was all about fun. His scenes were fan favorites because he thought anything that involved sex and violence was one hell of a good time. Hartigan is who brought the heart. His story was just straight depressing. Hardly anything to crack a smile about. His story was the one that made you feel and care. It is quite simple to put these stories together in terms of when you need a different emotion going through the film put a scene where one of these very different characters can bring what they alone can bring. Now in the new film the main characters are Dwight, Johnny and Nancy. All three characters are straight depressing. Johnny (Gordon-Levitt) smiles every now and then, but he is just a fast talker, not necessarily someone who brings light to a situation. Nancy is an alcoholic now who cuts herself and wants vengeance. Dwight’s wit is replaced with anger and being brutish, he is now basically Marv without the charm. While Marv is now given the intro, which is enjoyable enough, and a side character gig in all three stories to try his best to give some glimmer of fun to an otherwise all gloom-and-doom script.

Plus, get over Boyhood!

Dustin: I thought this movie did a great job with Ava. She was a great movie villain. She went beyond femme fatale to movie monster. If there’s one thing that’ll stick with me about this movie, it’s her character.

Nick: That’s a good point. Eva Green was fantastic, and I thought most of the secondary roles in the film were very well cast. Green was certainly the highlight of the film, and like you will be the one thing that I will remember with fondness.  

I’m also curious on why Rodriguez and Miller (directors) decided not to color random objects like they did in the original. It gave the world more depth and was another thing that was interesting. There are a couple in A Dame to Kill For, but nowhere near as many as the first.

300: Rise of an Empire

Nick: 1.5 of 5 stars Josh: 2 of 5 stars Average: 1.75 of 5 stars (Canary on life support)

Nick: Our much beloved version of Burapi, Dustin Dye, is gone for the next week, off being bored in places like China and Mongolia. To fill his void we've brought in Josh Hammond, who was originally a member of Canary Movie Reviews until we realized he made us look foolish so we had to cut the poor guy loose. While being one of the most handsome and charming men that you could meet, Josh is a counselor at a psychiatric facility. The only thing that equals his love for people is his passion for media. We often get heated in our discussions of trivial art but at the end of the day it’s birthed out of a mutual respect for each other’s opinions. I think...

300: Rise of an Empire is an exact copy of its predecessor if the only thing you got from 300 was blood, breasts and pointless slow motion. Instead of following a “hero” the film mostly focuses on Artemisia (Eva Green), a Greek who chooses to fight for the Persians, whose main goal seems to be to fuck (I mean fight) Themistocles.

Nick: What did you think of 300: Rise of the Slow Motion?

Josh: Well, the slow motion was something that worked in the first one, but in this day and age it feels overused.

Nick: Rise of an Empire used 3-D as if it was the first movie ever to think of the effect and chose to show it off constantly. Slow motion can be an amazing movie trick, but when over used and misplaced it just looks sloppy.

Josh: There just wasn't a lot to the story so they had to lean on 3-D and slow motion. In the original it felt new and different, but in this one it feels like something we have seen before.

Nick: As you say, Empire definitely lacked on the story. In screenwriting a page equals a minute onscreen. In a non-exaggerated way, this could possibly be the thinnest script ever written. There is hardly any dialogue. Mostly just slow motion, one liners, sneers and war shots. It would not be surprising if one page lasted 10 minutes on screen.

Josh: The strong points of the first were the visuals and the writing of Frank Miller. This one seems to lack both of those qualities.

Nick: The writing in 300 is certainly overlooked because its just so macho that people write it off as though it was what the film needed to be with the style it had. I’m not one for movie quotes, and although it’s been five years since I've seen the original, I could quote at least 10 lines. Not only that, but there are many shots that I can recall because they were so interesting and beautiful to me. Rise of an Empire had no effect on me.

Josh: What 300 had going for it was the source material of the graphic novel. It’s both well written and very stylistic as well. Zack Snyder pulled off a faithful adaption that worked. Rise of an Empire, on the other hand, without source material seems like it doesn't know what it's doing or where to go with the script or visuals. Thus everything feels disjointed and overly flashy.

Nick: None could argue about Frank Miller when it comes to crafting captivating graphic novels, but when it comes to movies all that has to be said is The Spirit and I throw up a little in my mouth.

Was there anything that you liked in the movie?

Josh: The fights scenes were well choreographed. I also like how it wasn't just a straight sequel like the trailers led me to believe. I thought that idea seemed a bit pointless, like having a sequel to the Alamo. The movie takes place before, during and after the events of 300 and gives you a little more insight into the war and characters. Was there anything you liked?

Nick: Two of the things that made a terrible film better were Eva Green (Artemisia) and someone who I've never seen before--Sullivan Stapleton (sweet name) as Themistocles. Since the script had absolutely nothing within it, these two really had to chew up scenery for the film to be entertaining. Green reminded me of Nicolas Cage in his worst movies. I mean this as a total compliment. When a film is bad, overact and maybe it could be entertaining.

Josh: Green is fantastic and it was nice to have a strong female character. As far as overacting, I think it totally works in a film like this that is not built on subtlety. It’s hard not to enjoy the sex scene turned fight scene!

Nick: Highlight of the film! One thing that was totally ridiculous in the film was how (like the first movie) they had a father and son relationship brought into the midst of the battle. While it worked in 300, now it seems incredibly lazy to take a majorly insignificant part of the plot of the first movie and just throw it into the sequel. Twist! Though this time his father doesn't want his son to fight.

Josh: That part was very forgettable. In fact I had totally forgotten about it until now. The film definitely would have benefited from some more time spent on the relationships.

Nick: Another silly thing that we all noticed was how Themistocles would be wearing his helmet before the battle would begin but would take it off immediately as the battle started. He wore it through the first battle and it saved his life a couple of times but he must have felt it was useless in those other battles. If I had been with the Athenians and was one of the grunts and saw him throw his helmet on the ground I would have been plenty pissed that he didn't just give it to me before the battle. What an ass!

Josh: Haha! Yeah, I think we laughed uncontrollably after the third time he did that. As if they weren't already wearing as little armor as possible. Like the loincloth was all they needed for the job. But Nick, how else are we going to see Themistocles sexy face in battle?

Nick: It was really sexy!