3 stars (out of 5)
Robert Rodriguez’s follow-up to 2005’s Sin City, this time written and properly co-directed by Frank Miller himself (drawing from his own graphic novels), was beset by problems, and it shows, with a serious dose of sequelitis all too obvious. And yet there are more than enough seedy stars, pulpy plot twists and Eva Green disrobings to provide a nasty enough good time anyway.
Four threads interweave, three of which are actually prequels to the events of the first film, with Marv (Mickey Rourke again heavily made-up) introduced watching stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba) before he gets into trouble after bashing some preppies. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a new character) also appears as Johnny, a cocky card shark who talks his way into a high-stakes poker game with vicious Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) and regrets it, and the focus also later shifts to Nancy. Haunted by visions of Hartigan (Bruce Willis in the vignette that proves the sequel to the first film), she’s drinking and losing it, and eventually she’s driven to dangerous revenge.
However, the titular tale involves Dwight McCarthy, who’s played by Josh Brolin (this is before the plastic surgery that meant he looked like Clive Owen in the original). Dwight is approached by Ava Lord (Eva Green), a character who’s been compared to classic film noir femme fatales like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, although Stanwyck would never have revealed so much skin. Ava is bad news and Dwight knows it, but he’s still sucked in again, possibly as Ava brings colours (blue and red) into the black and white, or possibly as he sees her dive nude into a pool, and when he realises that he’s been had (so to speak) he, too, seeks vengeance.
Perhaps because he had to deal with hurdles including the death of two of the first film’s stars (Brittany Murphy, whose Shellie doesn’t appear, and Michael Clarke Duncan, who’s replaced by Dennis Haysbert), Rodriguez’s handling here feels less assured than usual – or was that actually due to the fact that, again, he was simply exhausted after also serving as co-producer, co-editor, co-cinematographer and more? And yet there’s much to enjoy nevertheless, with cool support from Ray Liotta, Christopher Lloyd and many others, lashings of stylised violence and a terrific turn from Green as a dame many would gladly kill for. Just say when.
(Published on the RIU website on September 17 2014)
I Wake Up Screening 