The Sin City film series offers a refreshingly alternative comic-book movie template to the currently popular superhero subgenre, one centred around booze – bullets and cruel deceit rather than spandex and mystical powers. Part two, A Dame to Kill For, arrives nine years after the original film hit cinemas and a full six after Frank Miller's ill-fated attempt at solo directing, 2008's The Spirit. The comic-book icon has wisely chosen to reunite with the experienced Robert Rodriguez for the sequel. A new longer trailer for the project, released this week, suggests their latest collaboration will try to recapture the original film's confident blend of neo-noir stylings, sexploitation and video game violence.
A Dame to Kill For is based on Miller's own Sin City comic book, which itself borrows liberally from the classic 1944 Billy Wilder noir Double Indemnity. As with the original film, there will be several linked episodes, the multilinear narrative allowing for an ensemble cast which sees the returning Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba and Powers Boothe joining a raft of newcomers.
Alpha femme fatale Ava Lord is played by the always-wonderful Eva Green, whose semi-clothed appearance on a recent publicity poster was enough to see it banned by US censors earlier last month. Miller and Rodriguez will not have been too bothered, as Sin City thrives on pushing the old-school noir template into exactly this kind of edgier, trashier territory. It's no surprise that Quentin Tarantino was enlisted to direct a scene for the original film: the Pulp Fiction director sucks up such fiercely political incorrectness like a five-dollar shake.
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Lord's paramour-cum-mark, Dwight McCarthy, is portrayed this time around by Josh Brolin, replacing Clive Owen (though the latter appears in some scenes taking place prior to McCarthy's facial reconstruction). Likewise, Bruce Willis will be seen in certain segues that flash back to the events of the first movie, which saw his character John Hartigan sacrifice himself to protect his family from the nefarious Senator Roark (Boothe). In the sequel, Alba returns as the exotic dancer Nancy, who Hartigan rescued from Roark's paedophile son in Sin City. Hardened and out for revenge, she will play a greater part this time around.
It'll be intriguing to see how the film-makers restore Rourke's hulking Marv, who was executed at the end of Sin City, to the storyline. The comic book A Dame to Kill For is set prior to the events of The Hard Goodbye, which provided many of Marv's scenes in the first film, yet the new film seems more of a sequel than a prequel. I'm also looking forward to seeing Joseph Gordon-Levitt join the cast as a cocky young gambler who seems to be getting on the wrong side of Roark.
Crucial to the new film's success will be whether audiences' tastes have moved on in the near-decade since the first instalment. Fortunately Miller and Rodriguez have chosen a timeless form in neo-noir, and our fascination with the grimy underbelly of life only seems to have developed since 2005 with the success of the Grand Theft Auto computer games. Part two also seems to have pushed some of the more offensive elements of the original to the rear: Sin City's warrior prostitutes do not seem to be major players, though there remain strippers and venomous women galore in this morally nebulous netherworld.
Miller and Rodriguez perfectly captured the insouciant monochrome cool of the comic books last time out, so here's hoping for a repeat performance. At the very least, A Dame to Kill For should give us a two-hour break from masked crimefighters, robosuited megageniuses and superpowered extra-terrestrials with conveniently all-American values.
