Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For

Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For has a striking visual style, an engaging plot, and fun characters and cameos. 

I liked the first Sin City, although I haven't read any of the comics. I didn't remember much about it, so I read the Wikipedia article on it before watching this one. I didn't think it really helped; it was just a jumble of names - X did this, then Y did that, and I couldn't even keep the names straight while I was reading it. I think it actually was useful, though.

I love the visual style of the sequel. I wanted to see it at the theater, but it looks like it's not coming to the cheap one. It's amazing how much it looks like you're watching a live comic, and all the highlights and color pops were great. I liked the noir-style narration.


The stunts were pretty cool. The best one was Miho's decapitation helicopter. I think I liked the performances and cameos more than anything. Jessica Alba was alright, but I didn't always find her believable. I liked all of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's scenes, and Christopher Lloyd was good. It was a bummer that Johnny died, though. I was surprised it had as many "happy endings," as it did, though, with Dwight killing Ava and Nancy killing Roark. I didn't think Dwight was going to be able to do it. I figured Gail or somebody would be the one to kill Ava. I guess his story isn't totally happy since he's stuck in Old Town now, and he didn't want to be there.

Jeremy Piven was pretty funny. He made a terrible move saying "turn this car around or I’m going to turn you in." You give somebody no choice but to kill you when you say something like that. I don't think Nancy really needed to cut her face to get Marv to go after Roark. He seemed pretty game to go after anybody for any reason. I liked the way the story unfolded with Ava, and we found out that she was just totally manipulative.

Reading the plot for Sin City, it seemed kind of all over the place, but this one really was centered around Ava, which makes sense since that's the title. There were side plots, like Nancy, Johnny, and Marv, but it seemed more cohesive than the first one.