Trailer Review: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

Robert Rodriguez’s sequel to Sin City (2005) finally gets a trailer and it certainly packs a punch. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is a rather belated follow up considering it has been nearly ten years since the first film was released. This film is based on the graphic novels written and illustrated by Frank Miller who also co-directs alongside Rodriguez. Miller’s Sin City comics were gritty, violent and they were set in a city that looked like the kind of place Satan would call home.

In this follow up, a bunch of different stories from the graphic novels have all been thrown into one movie. This is similar to the first film which had a similar structure. The main plot involves Josh Brolin’s character Dwight McCarthy who gets involved with a twisted femme fatale called Ava Lord played by Eva Green. She wants Dwight to help her escape from an abusive husband, a billionaire called Damien Lord (played by Marton Csokas who excels at playing movie scumbags.) Lord is an old flame of McCarthy’s and he still has feelings for her. This makes him an easy target for her scheming and a classic film noir hero who gets into a sticky situation he did not see coming. It turns out that Lord might not be telling him the truth about her intentions and she is a dangerous person to be around.

The other stories in the film include Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a gambler down on his luck and Mickey Rourke’s grizzled tough guy Marv who was also in Sin City (2005.) Marv’s story here is set before the events in the first film and he wakes up in a room full of dead men with no recollection of how he got there. The supporting cast is impressive as it includes Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Ray Liotta, Powers Boothe, Lady Gaga, Rosario Dawson, Jamie King and Juno Temple. Eva Green in particular looks very well cast as Ava Lord as she oozes both sex appeal and danger.

Sin City was an interesting film as it combined an exaggerated film noir aesthetic with some larger than life characters. It also worked as both a parody of the film noir genre and a homage to it. The trailer for this sequel appears to retain the same style and crazy characters so it has potential to be very entertaining. It introduces some of the main characters and gives the impression that their city is a fun place to visit but not the kind of place the viewer would want to live. Newcomers to the series may be a bit confused however as the trailer doesn’t explain much of the plot. It throws together all these different characters without giving the viewer much information regarding who they are and what they are doing. Another downside is the electronic music used towards the end of the teaser which seems out of place. That type of music doesn’t really fit with the visual style the series is well known for. It is a well edited trailer though with some nice close ups and dissolves which soften the quick edits from scene to another. Random still frames from the comic books also appear to have been inter-cut with the action too which is cool.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For will be released on August 22nd in the US and the 29th in the UK. Check out the trailer and share your thoughts.