#60 SIN CITY 2

#60 SIN CITY TOO!
Starring Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Josh Brolin, Rosario Dawson, Powers Boothe, Denis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Christopher Lloyd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, 120 minutes long.

So, here we are, nine years after the much hyped and well-received first installment of this two film series, cos after this there sure as shit ain't going to be another one, or to put it another way, there sure as shit shouldn't be, cos as franchises go, this one has already burned through everything of merit it might once have had, and there's nothing new left to offer. Indeed the sound you can hear is that of the barrel being well and truly scraped dry.

Once again, one trick ponies Miller and Rodriguez go back to Frank Miller's Sin City comic noir world to convert Miller's once ground-breaking comics into short, black and white, vignettes of 'gritty' crime stories filmed against a green screen.

The stories are all 21st Century Noir in style, with fem-fatales, hookers with hearts of gold, hit-men gone good and every other cliche you can shake a stick at, which 9 years ago seemed quite fresh and rewarding, but this time, oddly enough all smacks of a huge pile of 'Meh'. It's not a bad film, it's just a lot of 'been there, done that', but sadly better. Sure the 9 years might have seen great advances in the CGI and effects department and the 3D works well (assuming the cinema gets the right filter working of course), but overall this just feels like 2 hours of the same tricks, the same beats and nothing new - the hookers team up to take down the bad guys, Marv, the always excellent, Mickey Rourke does his unstoppable one-man war machine schtick, Eva Green, does the whole film nude, ensnaring man after shallow, man with her admirable assets and nothing else. while in other tales, Josh Brolin (playing Clive Owen's character before the plastic surgery) bugs out and goes postal, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays poker twice with Powers Boothe and Jessica Alba dances herself into a homicidal, alcoholic frenzy. All accompanied by a gutty, dirty guitar rifts and the obligatory gravely voice over.

While the male characters manage to portray a vaguely wide range of types, the female characters fare less well and are indeed all staggering generic, portraying either sex workers, strippers or naked fem-fatales. Oddly enough it didn't seem that jarring in the first film, but this time I have to say it all started to scream, sleazy and not in a good way, but a sort of wheezy, grubby old man oggling naked young women will smirking sort of way. Before today, it had been nine years since i last saw Sin City, I seriously doubt I'll ever see this one ever again, even in nine year's time.

5/10