Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

Despite attempting to distance himself from his violent past by becoming a private investigator, Dwight (Josh Brolin) is quickly corrupted by Ava (Eva Green), an old flame ostensibly seeking protection, and lured back into darkness. Years later, disorientated by a deadly car crash, Marv (Mickey Rourke) retraces the steps that have lead him into the hills surrounding Sin City, where two frat boys now lie dead. Down below, Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is on a winning streak at Kadie’s, but when he dares to beat Senator Roarke (Powers Booth) at poker his luck shows signs of running out. In the next room, through a hole in the wall, Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is taking aim at the father of the man who once tried to kill her, but who instead took the life of the man she loved (Bruce Willis).

Not so much a sequel as a second anthology featuring interlocking stories set before, during and after the events of the previous film, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For is often so incoherent that it is able to resurrect characters, recast actors and reprise stories almost at will, usually without anyone noticing. Clive Owen and Michael Clark Duncan are gone — though their characters return (nominally, at least, though it hardly matters if you don’t recognise them) — but Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis return, despite both of their characters being killed of last time around (the former by virtue of chronology and the latter as an overprotective ghost). Thanks to the nearly ten years between movies, however, you’ve probably forgotten.

Of the myriad new characters, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s gambler is perhaps the most memorable. Starting out as a winner in a city of losers (the closest the film ever comes to breaking the mould), the film delights in his unprecedented run of bad luck at the hands of returning villain Roarke. Also impressive, if only in passing, are Eva Green — an uncannily natural fit for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s world — and a near-unrecognisable Christopher Lloyd — who makes the most of a brief appearance as a low-budget surgeon-for-hire with a predilection for ice lollies. While Rourke’s Marv — by now officially the face of the franchise — keeps cropping up throughout, to rapidly diminishing effect, the supporting actors are reduced to mere cameos. Blink and you risk missing Juno Temple, Jeremy Piven and, er, Lady Gaga.

If Marv is the figurehead then Dwight is surely the dramatic lead. Unfortunately, Brolin — who replaces Owen — is nowhere near as compelling in the role.  A self-styled private investigator with unresolved and unrequited feelings for Ava, Brolin’s Dwight is the most Sin City character imaginable. He isn’t so much on a downward spiral of self-destruction as caught in a perpetual loop of it. Never the most charismatic screen presence, Brolin is here a crushing bore, and the main reason that the second act — where the majority of his story unfolds — is such a drag; he’s just another tortured schmuck in a city that’s full of them. Rosario Dawson returns as a friendly face, but the chemistry that once existed between the characters is in staggeringly short supply here. Their relationship is even less convincing than Alba and Willis’.

All in all, however, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For is pretty much on a par with its predecessor. Even after nine years Miller’s visual style still looks remarkably fresh and inventive, and while the use of colour in this one might not be quite as striking it benefits from an impressive 3D conversion. Dramatically, though, the new film is just as inert: with its over-reliance on voice over, homogeneous characters and repetitive storylines, Sin City remains all style and no substance.

Immortals (2011)

Having spent his childhood training at the instruction of Zeus (Luke Evans – in the guise of John Hurt so that he doesn’t break his own law forbidding divine interference), Theseus (Henry Cavill) finds himself thrust into battle when the King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) destroys his village and kills his mother in search of the legendary Epirus Bow. Joining forces with the virgin oracle (Freida Pinto) and a repentant thief (Stephen Dorff), Theseus must find the bow first and overcome the King’s army if he is to stop the Titans from being released and war spreading to the heavens.

Much has been made of the fact that Immortals is the new 300, the new Clash of the Titans and as such a joyless update of any old sword and sandal epic worth its green-screen. It’s true, just like its spiritual forebears, Immortals is almost uniformly devoid of recognisable pulse, expending disproportionately more effort on style and perfectly glistening sinew than it does on such elements as character and story. Essentially a mash-up of the most recognisable Greek myths (will someone please retire the poor Minotaur), Immortals may even boast the most derivative plot to date.

What most critics are downplaying, however, is just how striking  Tarsem Singh’s film actually is. While a particularly impressive example of set design or gorgeously composed set piece might be little substitute for an involving story, some of Immortals’ imagery goes beyond petty window dressing. Without wishing to sound conceited, there were moments during Immortals that verged on visual poetry: taken out of context, the images of writhing titans and herculean struggle verge on artistry – accidentally (very clearly accidentally) drawing comparison to such formalist works as Sergei Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates – unceremoniously spoiled by the Hollywood necessity for stock characters, truncated subtext and a creaky, uninspiring plot.

Immortals is intended as a tent-pole movie, however, and it is in this vein that director Tarsem Singh fails unequivocally; while it may boast a commendably unabashed portrait of the gods, and a cinematography that goes beyond 300’s chroma key technique, it lacks the personality of the infinitely more enjoyable Thor. Henry Cavill is more muscle than man; Freida Pinto a love interest before she is an individual and Micky Rourke, well, Micky Rourke is Iron Man 2’s Ivan Vanko transposed to ancient Greece. For all the slow motion, stereoscopy and needless grew, this couldn’t be any less engaging if it tried. There are no stakes, nobody to invest in and nothing to distract you from the encroaching tedium.

This really is encapsulated in the final conflict, in which King Hyperion’s needlessly colossal army lines up outside the Hellenic stronghold, the bow in their grasp. As Freida Pinto heroically sits the ensuing battle out, leaving Theseus to give one of the least convincing speeches ever written by a professional writer, we are left to watch as an endless reel of extras massacre one another to absolutely no effect. Even when our heroes – Theseus and the suddenly active Olympians – do battle with Hyperion and the Titans respectively, the fight scenes are so lacking in stakes that you really don’t care that Heaven is apparently short of a few gods. It’s not exactly what myths are made of.

While Immortals is unfortunately guilty of just about every criticism you are likely to throw at it – the glacial pacing, the hand-carved performances and the general inconsequence of its ending – there is one thing which ultimately marks it out as more than simply 300-lite and Clash of the Titans reheated: a genuine degree of artistic merit. A Greecian statue writ large, Immortals is as beautiful as is it is lifelessly rendered in stone.