Stylistically this film has nothing new when compared to the first "Sin City" film (I suppose it does have 3-D, but as I caught a 2-D screening, that is irrelevant to me). That style is more often than not the focus of the film. The action scenes are not of the heart-pounding variety, but instead rely on the visual comic book aesthetic to "look cool" for their entertainment value. Fortunately, this largely worked, and I had a lot of fun with the film, even if it didn't have much "new" to present.
The film tells four stories (three if you don't count the shortest, a pre-credits sequence). The longest is easily the best, and it is literally the heart of the film, coming all in one big chunk at the middle of the movie. The other two stories are intercut around it; each have at least one scene before the central storyline begins. Intercutting the stories, instead of showing them one after the other as the first film did, is a smart move. The film's style is great, but it does become homogenous after a while. Going back and forth between the various stories was a good way to keep things varied. I actually wish it had been done a little more. "A Dame To Kill For", the central story, has a perfect place where it could have cut away, but instead it proceeds as one long story. It works, and I'm glad they didn't jump around so much that each segment lost its narrative momentum, but since it was the longest story, a little break wouldn't have hurt.
This isn't the kind of film to really get into analyzing performances. In a lot of ways, the more over the top and unrealistic the performance, the better. Josh Brolin and Eva Green are given the most to work with, getting a few quieter, introspective moments in addition to the over the top comic book ones. Green is especially good, bringing a growing intensity to her role as each layer of her character is revealed. For the record, I sincerely believe that my comments are based solely on the quality of her performance, and not the fact that she rarely wears any clothes whenever she appears on screen.
The movie never quite wears out its welcome. When the visual style is just starting to get old, it knows to call it quits. I only wish it had waited a few more minutes to do so, as the ending was quite abrupt. The storylines were all wrapped up well enough, but the film could have used a short scene (of what I don't know) to let it end gracefully instead of just ending. The first film featured such a scene.
It's hard to say whether this film bests the original. It's not as fresh visually, since those aesthetics were set up by the first film. But I do think the main story trumps all three of the stories told in the original. On that basis, it's a film worth seeing.
B
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