Sin City 2 vs...

I have just returned from the theater, and I have some words to say.
It's another versus, one from a franchise I had hope for, and the other was from being a fan of the style.
Which one wins?
Well lets start with the most recent one.

As a fan of the original, I was excited to finally hear that they were making another movie.
I love the Noir style, the narration, and the speeches.
And in this case, it deliverers. 
But there are a few... hicups.

I'll start by saying the film is in 4 parts (5 parts with 4 stories), and I have the judge them SEPARATELY to give my full opinion.

1 - "Just Another Saturday Night" - a short story intro
2 - "The Long Bad Night (Part I) - filler
3 - "A Dame to Kill For" - main plot
4 - "The Long Bad Night (Part II)" - filler conclusion
5 - "Nancy's Last Dance" - disappointing ending.  

Spoiler alert on the ending, by the way.

Anyway, the movie starts strong with it's best character, Marv~

We go through a short story (directly from the comic Booze, Broads, & Bullets ) , about a day in the life of Marv, as played by the original Mickey Rourke.  It's fast, over the top, gloriously bloody, and AWESOME!  I really liked it as a carbon copy of the original work.  My only complaint is that I wasn't sure of Marv's makeup, if it was suppose to make him look younger or what, but it made his face seem rounder, and I wasn't a fan of it.

The second story (and fourth later on ) is an original story for the Sin City World, and it fits.

It has Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a smooth, lucky, silver dollar coin flipping gambler.  And he plays it great, love his character.  As a poker player, I knew the rules and everything, and instead of being distracted by the obvious problems with the game play, I was enjoying his character.
And then it gets dark.  Really dark.
Long story short, it doesn't end well.
BUT!  It matches with the character, and even as a last bit of freedom of what he wanted to do.
A great story for the Sin City world.

Also as a plus~

Christopher "The Mad Scientist" Lloyd makes a GREAT SCENE!  Loved it.
Also~

Lady Gaga makes a nice cameo too.

And then we get to the meat of the movie, the main and title story.
With awesome Josh Brolin~

How is it this man keeps playing in movies I hate, but I still like the dude in them.
Anyway, he plays Dwight from the first movie, who was played by Clive Owen in the first one.
And even though I liked Clive, Josh plays it with Aces and blows it to the next level.
Except for the face reconstruction... that was kinda awkward.
But it's made up with Rosario Dawson, who I believe can do no wrong.
Sigh... 
Anyway, it follows the comic pretty well, adding more action and sexy scenes, but still alright.
The most noticable thing for me was that Manute (who was played by the late Michael Clarke Duncan ) is now played by Dennis Dexter Haysbert.  And he does well, good props for him taking on the role.

My only... well it's not a complaint on my part, but why is Eve Green topless in almost ALL of her scenes?

 Well... *shrug*, I won't complain to much.

And then we get to the last part...
And that's where I think the movie fails.  It doesn't end as strong as the first one does.  Not to mention, I felt a little underwhelmed...
AND THAT'S AFTER I WATCHED MARV STEAL 2  SHOTGUNS, A MOTORCYCLE, AND TAKE ON GROUPS, GROUPS OF HENCHMEN!
I can't blame Jessica Alba's acting (although a 33 year old trying to replay something she did when she was 24 is kinda silly), cause I think she plays crazy pretty damn well.  And I like the "Haunting of Bruce" also as part of the story narative... but it just ended poorly.  Should have been a better ending.

So I have to ask myself, as a final test about what I think about this movie...
Will I put it in my collection? 
The answer, is Yes.

It's bombing at the box office right now, and I can see why... but I think it's like with Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.  It's a UNDERGROUND comic movie.  It also didn't help that people right now are mad at Frank Miller (for good reasons, which I will probably have to write about later), and that it took too long being made.  My only regret about this series is that with it's box bombing, I will never get to see my favorite of the stories, Hell and Back, ever on the big screen.


SO with that done, what could I possibly put up with this movie that I seemed to love up against?
Well...
Remember what I wrote about for Guardians?  About another movie I was going to compare it too?
I finally saw it.

And what do I think?

...
......
.........
Guardians was better.  Hands down.

BUT!  I will say it's not as bad as critics were saying.
And it mostly because of the Turtles. 

As I was talking about in my other blog, the turtles seemed to capture the comedy and style of the other shows and comics.  And they are.  I personally think the strong parts are with the Turtles and the comedy they produce as a team and as they fight.  The fight scenes I liked and the Snowfall scene was AMAZING!  I also loved the Shredder and his fight scenes also.

...however, where this movie fails is everywhere else.

The story is crap.  The back story for the turtles is poorly done and is changed to make it even more confusing.  The bad guys evil plan makes no sense and April's character is... 
It's poorly written. 
And what makes me mad is that I could easily, EASILY write something better.

SO would I add this to my collection?
Yeeessss...ish?... ok, no.
If I could re-edit the movie to have just the Turtles and some scenes, I would.
It's not as good as the first movie, but I do say it's not as bad as the second and third movie.
It's on par with TMNT movie.  So it's good enough.

Also, both Marv and Raph have toothpicks in there mouths most of the movie.  However, what bothered me in Turtles is that Raph fought with it STILL IN HIS MOUTH!  Marv at least threw his away when heading to battle.  Practicality, thy name is a mass murdering psychopath. 


 
I make these reviews to point out that you can never tell what you like by reviewers.
I was distraught by the onset of bad reviews I heard about both Turtles and Sin City.  But after I found the time to see them, they weren't as bad as some reviews were saying.
I've always said that ALL movies have both good and bad parts in them.  It's up to the viewer what parts stick with them when they watch it, and not everyone is going to remember the good or the bad.

However, in my case, who has seen really, REALLY bad movies...

And the MOST DISTURBING THING EVER... 
(seriously, it's been over 7 years since I accidentally found it, and I have yet to find anything worse.)
These movies aren't that bad.


...I will recommend you wait till they go to DVD though.  
Both aren't worth your complete time at the theater.

Until next time. Later~
Will