"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

tn_sincity2BruceI’m not saying I liked SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR exactly, but it wasn’t as bad as reported. Considering that its two directors’ last films were THE SPIRIT and MACHETE KILLS, which I would consider among the worst things I’ve ever paid to see in theaters, this almost seems like a real movie.

It has all the same problems as the first SIN CITY without the novelty of being a weird new approach to a comic book adaptation, and with very little technological or stylistic advancement considering it was done 9 years later. But I think maybe things bugged me about the first one that people overlooked at the time and now are having a problem with, so they’re being harder on it than me. I don’t know.

The thing that’s original about the SIN CITY movies is also what’s hardest to swallow about them: they’re sleazy crime stories that take place in a fakey live action cartoon world. Settings are green screened more often than not, often with distracting visual gimmicks (certain things in color while most are in high contrast black and white, objects sometimes painted over solid white to look like drawings), and a couple characters (notably Mickey Rourke’s returning palooka Marv) wear goofy looking latex makeup jobs to look like the drawings in the comic book. Rourke finds himself standing sideways in many scenes because the fake nose looks better in profile, more like the drawings and less like an effects team trying to build their own Robert Z’Dar.

still_sincity2

There’s not as much of that in this one, fortunately, but there’s one guy that has a giant round head as big as a medicine ball. And apparently it was Stacy Keach under there. Weird. As if he doesn’t have a cartoonish enough head for this world.

In 2005, when part 1 came out, Frank Miller (who wrote and illustrated the comic book, and co-directed both movies with Robert Rodriguez) was a revered figure among comic book people. They were excited about his participation and about the movie’s (I think overly) literal adaptation of his work. But then time went on, some of the novelty wore off, not one single person liked his solo directorial work, some of The Nerds may have objected to 300 (also based on his comics) being embraced by their historical enemy The Jocks, Miller made very conservative statements in interviews that made people question whether they’d been misinterpreting his text as subtext, and the so-called “gritty” approach to comic books people associate with him started to fall out of favor.

What I’m saying is part 2 hasn’t changed much from the first one, but the world around them has. The viewers and their expectations have changed, so they see a pretty-much-the-same sequel as a huge decline. Which is fair. The march of progress.

mp_sincity2But I kinda liked the first SIN CITY at the time and I think some of what I enjoyed about it can also be enjoyed in this one. For what it’s worth it’s a singular vision. I got problems with its visual approach, but I appreciate its dedication to its macho world. In (Ba)sin City men are either anti-heroes on a noble mission from the gutter or total pigs abusing everybody else. They are grizzled, scarred and tough as nails or sweaty, corrupt and depraved. They all spend most of their time in the same strip club, either drinking away sorrows in the front while Nancy (Jessica Alba) dances in a cowboy outfit or playing high stakes cards in the back while she watches through a hole in the wall thinking about shooting them.

The women aren’t much better. They’re strippers, hookers or gold diggers. if they’re not a victim or a femme fatale they’re an Amazonian dominatrix. The women of Old Town are self-employed prostitute ninjas who guard their neighborhood from the roof tops and alleys with machine guns, arrows and swords. It’s a crazy reversal of the old ’70s and ’80s movie trope where if a woman goes to a certain part of town she’ll be immediately set upon by bands of raping punks in denim vests, headbands and spiked bracelets.

fakebruceThere are two pretty protagonists; both must be uglified before they can be heroes. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a slick young gambler with a secret vendetta, he receives a busted face and the most thoroughly mangled fingers I’ve seen in a movie. He has to have a dope-shooting Christopher Lloyd splint them with used popsicle sticks. Nancy, who was also the little girl who Bruce saved from kidnappers in part 1, now plans to avenge his death. But first she knows she has to cut off her hair, carve open her face and stitch it up like a cartoon Frankenstein.

To be frankly honest I like these stories, and I think they fit well together. It’s only the style that keeps me from fully digging the movie. I get invested in what’s going on and then all the tension is leading up to a silly car chase with video game vehicles spinning around like bumper cars. During a gorey out-of-the-blue ninja assault I kept thinking how much I would love this shit if it was shot like a real movie. Sure, high contract black and white is fine, but some locations, choreography, stunts, actors working together in the same shot. You know, like a movie. Jamie Chung pretending to fly in front of a green screen does not cut it. It’s cute, but this should be tough.

But in my opinion there are some stretches where the movie works. One of its best moves is casting Josh Brolin as Dwight. Of the people born in our era who should play noir anti-heroes, he’s gotta be near the top of the list, and his head in hi-def is as good an argument as any against putting all that makeup on Rourke. He proves that you can find a guy that looks like he was pulled off the cover of a pulp novel, you don’t gotta mold him out of rubber.

brolin-bruceWell, I guess later they do mold him out of rubber. He’s playing the character who, after plastic surgery, becomes Clive Owen’s character in the first one. But Owen must not’ve been game for a cameo because instead they do a makeup job and wig on Brolin to imitate Owen. It’s a weird idea that didn’t work for me, I was so confused trying to figure out who that guy was. He kinda looks like a caricature of Aaron Eckhart mixed with Bruce when he’s wearing that hilarious wig in the middle of LOOPER. Nice try though I guess.

But mostly he’s my man Brolin Thunder (note: I have seen other people using that nickname lately but I would like to state for the record that I coined it years ago and almost made a t-shirt), and in this one he works a sleazy private eye job but has a good heart (while photographing an affair he ends up rescuing the mistress and giving her a ride back to Old Town). And then all the sudden he gets lured in by bad-news ex-girlfriend Ava (Eva Green) who convinces his dick that her rich husband (Marton Csokas) is an abusive psycho and it needs to protect her.

We know, and his brain knows, that he shouldn’t even be talking to her, but his dick makes all the decisions and his brain doesn’t even have veto power. It’s a story told by a human boner that can only thrust in one direction, even if it knows better. Miller’s constant first person narration is literally worshipful of Ava’s sexuality, repeatedly calling her a goddess, and the camera constantly ogles her carefully digitally shadowed body as she puts it on display in the swimming pool and under see-through nighties. She’s a human piece of cheese on a mousetrap. But a piece of cheese never gave you a look like that.

Like Brolin, Green was born to play this type of role. (Literally. She was trained from birth in a femme fatale colony outside of Paris.) There’s not an actress who more thoroughly embodies the Scary Hot seductress, the woman who doesn’t even have to hide that she’s using you because she knows you’re gonna come to her anyway. Green recently played a more complex version of this character type in the much better Miller-based sequel 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, but it’s still fun to see her here. Even if the internet makes it increasingly clear that there are dudes out there who believe this is what most women are like, and is not just a trope from old detective novels.

Having actors who are game and have actual roles really helps Rodriguez out. The thing I hated most about MACHETE KILLS is that it seemed so fucking lazy, like barely even a story, just a series of half-assed cameos to prove how easy it is to make a movie at Robert Rodriguez’s house. He clearly spent way more time choosing fonts for the names on the poster than planning anything worthwhile for them to do. A DAME TO KILL FOR, thankfully, feels like an actual planned story with roles for actors to play. Some of them are small parts (Bruce is cool in it but should really be an unbilled cameo) but they are parts, not shoe-horned-in celebrity guests. Ray Liotta is especially good in his one scene. Even the visual gimmick that enhances his big, crazed eyes is pretty effective. And Lady Gaga’s not-bad walk-on as a waitress somewhat covers the shame of her part as “Lady Gaga posing with guns in front of a stock photo of a gas station” from MACHETE KILLS.

But there’s definitely some laughable shit in here too. The biggest laugh that didn’t seem intentional to me was when Powers Boothe (who is as good as you’d expect playing an evil senator) refers to his dear departed son, Nick Stahl’s character from part 1, and holds up a framed photo of him. And he looks like an evil monster! In fact I’m pretty sure it was just one of the publicity stills from the movie, something like this:

still_sincity
You’re telling me he doesn’t have one photo where his son just has a normal, non-sinister look on his face?

Okay, after writing all that I guess of talked myself into it, and I can admit it to the world: I kinda liked SIN CITY 2 REVENGE OF SIN CITY for what it was. It’s something Rodriguez had help with, had been planning for years, and based very closely on a pre-existing story. So it’s not enough to reverse MACHETE KILL’s announcement of his death as a director.  But I guess now I’ll keep a shovel near his grave just in case.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2014 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

36 Responses to “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For”

  1. grimgrinningchris

    December 1st, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    So weird. I have already visited twice today, but I came specifically this time to do a search on this movie to see if had been reviewed back when it came out as I just saw it last night.
    And here it is! Oh, that Vern!

    Back to the review…

  2. grimgrinningchris

    December 1st, 2014 at 2:29 pm

    As expected, Vern and I are on almost exactly the same page with this, though I think I liked the first movie a bit more than he did and like this one a little less than he did, the overall feelings on the specific pros and cons are pretty much the same.Wasn’t Jolie originally supposed to do the titular role back when this was first announced right after Sin City? It’s a bit of a tossup, but I’m not sure (at least in 2014 as opposed to 2006-7) that Jolie could quite have given it what Green does. I thought Brolin (who I normally love) was actually a bit flat and there was just too much Marv this time out, but Levvitt and Green were both outstanding.

  3. Another actor who seems to be made for noir-type thrillers is Jon Bernthal. He did a great job in the TV miniseries MOB CITY. Or was that supposed to be a series and they cancelled it? Well, whatever it was, he was great in it.

  4. The Undefeated Gaul

    December 1st, 2014 at 3:45 pm

    I’m pretty sure the lovingly cradled photo of evil Yellow Bastard was intentionally funny, for me it was the biggest laugh in the film. I enjoyed this, although I feel like a combo of some stories of part 1 and some of part 2 would have given us the perfect Sin City movie. Both have stories that are good and some that are crap. Let’s say you had one Sin City Movie containing Marv’s story with Frodo and Rutger Hauer, Bruce Willis vs Yellow Bastard and that combined with Eva Green and Gordon-Levitt’s story from part 2… that would’ve been great. In Part 2 I felt Alba’s story was very weak, as it climaxed with another raid on a house together with Marv, just like the first story in the film did. Repeating stuff from the first film is one thing, but repeating stuff from the same film barely an hour later? That’s just lazy.

    On another note, normally I despise 3D but this was one of the few films since Avatar where I really enjoyed its use. The opening credits especially were made much more fun by it.

  5. The Undefeated Gaul

    December 1st, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    Also if I remember correctly there were tittties in this movie. Five stars!

  6. One Guy from Andromeda

    December 1st, 2014 at 4:08 pm

    Not as good as 302: Rise of a Nation is all i needed to know…

  7. grimgrinningchris

    December 1st, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    Funny Vern mentions the photo of The Yellow Bastard.

    My friends and I have joked about the photo of Jones Sr that Indiana Jones has on his desk in Crystal Skull for years now- and how it just looks like a leftover still from LAST CRUSADE. “When did Jones Sr pose for that picture?!?!? Who took it??!??!?”

  8. It looks like it was shot on the red carpet.

  9. Oh, man. I have to admit that these movies are like catnip for me. I understand the limitations of direct comic book adaptations, but I absolutely love film noir. I just really enjoy the look and feel of this world, and I think the visuals, although a little campy, are absolutely unique. I had really given up on Miller and Rodriguez, but they tapped into some of their last bits of creativity for this film. It’s not as good as the first movie, but it’s still a relatively unique visual experience. I actually watched this film in Imax 3D on opening weekend. I was one of three people in the theater.

  10. And Grimgrinningchris, when I saw Indy 4 in theaters everyone busted out laughing at Sean Connery’s staged photograph in that scene.

  11. I think the mistake Rodriguez made was simply waiting too long, SIN CITY 2 should have come out no later than say 2010, but almost a decade later? I think there was something about that that kinda rubbed people the wrong way for some reason, me included.

    I had written it off but your review has convinced me to give it a shot Vern, after all any movie with a naked Eva Green is going to have something over a movie that does not, even if it’s a better movie.

  12. Also, like you said there’s been a big backlash against Miller in recent years (ever since “I’M THE GODDAMN BATMAN!” really) and he’s pretty much anathema among nerds now.

  13. I love when you hate stuff, because nobody body slams movies like Vern, but I watched Machete Kills a few weeks ago and was very surprised to discover that I didn’t hatethe movie , and might have liked it more than the first one. It wasn’t awesome, but at least it wasn’t bogged down with something like eight villains in the first movie. You got that one character where he wastes three quality actors on one role for no goddamn reason, but then you got Mel Gibson, who pretty much made that thing enjoyable for me. That said, before I watched that, I saw Sin City 2 and was also pleasantly surprised it wasn’t totally terrible. Glad you brought up Ray Liotta’s eyes- that was the best part. Anyway, despite all that, I don’t think you’re wrong to not fully welcome Rodriguez back to the fold of “good directors.” These movies have been pleasurable time wasters, but classics like Desperado, now nearly twenty years old, are a way of life.

  14. I think the ten year wait probably killed the movie at the box office, but I actually think that we need Sin City now more than ever. Ten years ago, Sin City the First was merely one film in a series of movies that were thinking about how to adapt comic books visually to the screen. From Tim Burton’s Batman films to Raimi’s Spider-Man movies to Ang Lee’s Hulk, there were a number of superhero and comic book adaptations that wanted to use comic books as a springboard for visual experimentation. Not all of these movies were actually good (300 and The Spirit, for instance). But at least they were doing something different. Today we’ve clamped down on what superhero films can do visually. This isn’t always a bad thing. It worked well for Nolan’s Batman movies, and I like the more grounded world of some Marvel films. It seems like there was a real attempt to tie down the more bizarre or campy visual aspects of comic books. But I happen to like the bizarre and campy aspects of comic books, and I think that there’s a place in cinema for extreme visuals in comic book movies. In some ways, Sin City the Second, despite being a sequel, is even more unique in today’s cineplexes than the original was ten years ago.

  15. As a fan of the first one, I thought this was mostly decent, but ruined by repetition. Too much Marv, even though I think Rourke did a good job and was a lot of fun to watch. The titular segment was the best part, and everyone in that did well, even Jeremy Piven, although it’s hilarious when you realise his character is the same one Michael Madsen played in the first movie. The movie also ends rather abruptly too and on such a dark note, considering that this is set before Marv’s story in the first film and Nancy seems pretty fine in that time period, so an epilogue establishing how she’s gotten closure would have made sense. It’s still dumb seeing Alba playing a stripper who doesn’t strip, but at least her routines actually seem like something that would actually get the audience riled up(and Marv being put off by it was a funny bit). Also, didn’t it seem like the end of the opening segment with Marv wondering where he got his gloves from was going to be paid off somehow in the other stories?

    Oh, and when I saw it in theaters, the 3D was pretty damn good.

  16. “I’m not saying I liked SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR exactly, but it wasn’t as bad as reported.”

    Vern – I agree, its just average. Honestly I don’t understand why they just didn’t take the title story and just elaborate upon it? The other stories did nothing for me (Nancy’s revenge plot bored me, JGL’s story was decent but…the ending was “eh”?) Also was I the only one hoping that when plastic surgery-ed Brolin got of the train, it was Clive Owen?

    Still when I saw it in theaters (in 2-D), the digital projection made the colors very vibrant and pop out. When JGL threw cards at the camera, for a split second I thought they had JUMPED OFF THE SCREEN. Impressive and crisp.

    As for Frank Miller, I find it strange that while nerdom/Internet wants nothing to do with him, BVS is taking alot of stuff from DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Carrie Kelly Robin? Check. Batman in battlesuit fighting Superman? Check. One more or less fighting for the “Man” against this controversial outlaw hero? Check. (Though roles reversed apparently.) So yeah imagine the Internet eating that movie up, but still shitting on Miller. I think that’s what will happen.

    (I think Miller’s problem these days is the perception that he’s become a parody of himself. Has anybody read Holy Terror! ?)

  17. Griff – Green’s shamless nudity reminds me of Roger Ebert’s review for BLACK DYNAMITE where he complained about how he missed gratuitous nudity in movies.

  18. The Undefeated Gaul

    December 2nd, 2014 at 3:41 pm

    We all do. Especially in these days when the goddamn nudity is often CGI (see Machete, The Change-Up etc.) That’s even worse than body doubles.

    Thank God for Eva Green still doing it the way it should be done

  19. Look, I’m sorry guys, I was one of the shadowy conspiracy group that put a secret Nerd Fatwa on Frank Miller and tanked this film at the box office. After GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY came out we drunk on power, we… we didn’t know what we were doing *sobs*

  20. By the way, not to get too off topic, but does it weird out anyone else to think that 2005, the year of the first SIN CITY’s release, is about to be a decade ago? It’s not that it doesn’t feel like a while ago but it’s like really? Ten whole years since Tom Cruise danced on Oprah’s couch? Ten years since the start of Brangelina? Ten years since Katrina?

    That whole era of the twilight years of the Bush administration (2005, 2006, 2007) still feels recent to me, it’s eerie to think that soon not only will it all be a decade ago but at the same time we’ll be living in the twilight years of Obama’s administration.

  21. As to why this took forever to get produced, its simple: Nobody wanted to fund it. In fact I read somewhere that in order to get one of the FX companies to do the CGI work, Rodriguez basically made them an investor and a cut of the action.

    “Ten whole years since Tom Cruise danced on Oprah’s couch?”

    Way off-topic, I wish people would stop believing that myth that moment was what hurt his career.

  22. When Tom Cruise actually shows genuine human emotions he gets shit for that. Sometimes you can´t win.

  23. Speaking of Miller, has anybody heard those rumors that he’s dying or something?

    Meanwhile he and Scott Snyder are doing another sequel to DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

  24. “As to why this took forever to get produced, its simple: Nobody wanted to fund it.”

    Why, though? Wasn’t the first movie a respectable hit?

    “Speaking of Miller, has anybody heard those rumors that he’s dying or something?”

    Yeah I have and they all stem from photos like this http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3743858944/tt0458481?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_evt_37 http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3626418432/tt0458481?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_evt_44 http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3676750080/tt0458481?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_evt_41

    I don’t know what’s going on but he certainly doesn’t look well, here’s hoping he’s ok.

  25. Christ, he looks like he’s being corrupted by Sith powers

  26. Frank Miller has always had a bit of a conservative streak, but he was more of a libertarian conservative and, from my reading anyway, his beliefs overlapped some with liberals. I actually thought his nebulous politics made some of his 80s work interesting. Putting aside his hard turn into neoconservativism, the quality of his work has just plummeted. I’ll defend The Dark Knight Strikes Again to an extent, but it’s a messy story. And then there’s that terrible Batman and Robin run. Over the course of the six or so issues I read, the plot barely moved. The dialogue was laughable, and it didn’t seem like Miller knew where he was going with the characters. At least we still have his work from the 80s.

  27. Frank Miller strikes me as a guy very frustrated and disgusted with the modern day and that expresses itself with the neo-conservativism, but I don’t think he necessarily completely buys into it, I mean this is the guy who after 9/11 wrote “I’m sick of flags, I’m sick of God, I’ve seen the power of faith”, that’s not exactly keeping in line with post 9/11 conservative thinking, I think primarily he just likes pissing people off.

    Honestly, I feel sorry for the guy, 9/11 must’ve traumatized him in some way, wasn’t he actually there in person in New York when it happened?

  28. Calling Miller “neoconservative” seems actually a little too kind. He seems closer to out-and-out Fascism at this point.

  29. I found this one very average. I LOVE the first one, especially Marv. The quote “The night was hot as hell” said in that raspy voice set the tone perfectly for me.

    The first one had many memorable scenes for me, examples; cutting of Frodo’s legs and the dog eating with Frodo just looking at him was creepy, Rutger Hauer(?) getting a headshot felt like JUSTICE for that piece of shit, the twin sister visiting him in jail before his execution was amazing noir romance for me. The only thing I remember about part two was Eva Green boobies. So there is that. In part 1 Marv was actually playing detective, working his way to the top. In part 2 he was just dumb muscle.

    What saddens me about movies like this is that I truly enjoy it when the bad people get some justice served on their asses, but then realize there are really people like that out there running free with no Marvs to give them their come-uppance.

    I did enjoy finding out the reason why Manute has a gold eye, though.

  30. I was prepared to see this one on the condition that someone could confirm that Benicio Del Toro’s head has a prominent role. Someone walks around carrying del Toro’s head as it comments wryly on the stuff happening in the film. Or maybe it’s just up there on a shelf behind the bar yacking away.

    Also the whole Brittany Murphy thing bums me out. She was a good actor.

    I’m just going to assume that everyone has seen PENNY DREADFUL. Green was great in that, as was Timothy Dalton. Hell, even Josh Harnett distinguished himself.

  31. I never thought I’d say “too much Powers Boothe in this movie” but that’s kind of my thought on Sin City 2. Just too much Boothe (which is normally not a bad thing but is when he’s playing an uninteresting one-dimensional character across 2 of the 3 stories). Also too much Marv – who is ALSO doing the exact same thing in 2 of the 3 stories, helping two main characters raid two identical looking mansions. Should have just gone 3 for 3 and have him help Levitt raid another random mansion while you’re at it, jeez.

    It’s not the disaster people say it is, but it’s undoubtedly dull and boring. Really shows how important a script is, since the look is pretty much the same as the first one (I actually thought certain images were even more eye-popping here) but the stories and characters and dialogue just aren’t there this time. The Marv prologue is so slight i actually forgot it happened, not to mention I don’t think they ever followed up on where he got that coat. The JGL story is interesting and he’s actually kinda great (normally I think he’s pretty bland), but then the ending is….I wouldn’t even call it a shaggy dog story, it’s kind of a big “wait, that’s it?”

    Eva Green deserves an award for bringing shameless nudity back, but that whole story is kind of old hat, like a DTV Basic Instinct-clone watched on fastforward with no twists or surprises. Christopher Meloni and Jeremy Piven have bills to pay, apparently. And sorry, the entire thing only works if you have a Clive Owen cameo. Only Rodriguez would have the balls to do that scene at the train where the “new” Josh Brolin shows up looking just like Josh Brolin with a wig, and the only way you’re supposed to connect that he’s now Clive Owen from the first one is because your nerd friend told you or you looked it up on the internet like me. I mean, you’re Robert Rodriguez, go grab Clive Owen on his lunch break from The Knick and film like you do with everyone else.

    And that last story. Jeez, it wasn’t going that badly until they raid the mansion and Alba suddenly acts like she’s playing cowboys and indians with her kid. I don’t know if there’s a “convincing” way to hold a crossbow, but this isn’t it. And the abrupt ending! And that Aerosmith song at the end? WTF?? (Serious wtf – what happened to Stacy Keach? I’m glad he got dressed in all that makeup for that nothing role. Even though knowing Rodriguez, Keach probably filmed 4 more movies worth of footage for them to dredge out later when they decide to adapt the other Sin City comics).

  32. Having middle to low expectations helped me enjoy this one more than I had anticipated. I appreciated the uniqueness of the visuals, and I think the ten year wait since part one came out only made it stand out more, like Josh Brolins new chin. Which by the way, that twist kinda threw me when he got off the train. And now I hear you say he was mean’t to be Clive Owen’s character from the original SIN? Okay, I can dig that.

    Story wise I liked the hard boiled femme fatalities on display – it was basically just watching nearly every single male character get caught in a woman trap – Ray Liotta’s takedown with his pants down, Christopher Meloni (who’s casting and subsequent decent performance was a small surprise) was the most titty blinded and stupid.

  33. Poeface – yeah the Brolin/Owen switchup reminds me – Rodriguez really plays it both ways re: continuity with the first one. On one hand he has weird injokes that only make sense if you remember things from the first one (the out of nowhere eyeball ripping to explain why Manute (Michael Clarke Duncan/Dennis Haysbert) has a prosthetic eye in Part 1), but then if you have any recollection of 1, it makes zero sense that Manute doesn’t recognize the Brolin/Owen character since he’s seen him with both his new and old faces. (Not to mention he DIES in the prequel story)

    I actually looked up some websites to see what the hell the official timeline is, and apparently for any of it to make sense, Nancy’s face makes a full recovery and she goes back to her job stripping after she blows away the Senator at the end (as she’s apparently all fresh faced and happy go lucky in Marv’s story from the first one where he ends up dying). I know I shouldn’t put much thought into it (as apparently neither have Miller or Rodriguez) but it might actually make more sense if these stories took place AFTER Marv died. It’s like the Sixth Sense except now there’s ANOTHER ghost besides Bruce Willis walking around helping people.

  34. It really wasn’t that bad I think the only thing that sucks about it is no Clive Owen for the post-surgery scenes. It was kind of embarrassing to see Josh Brolin trying to look like Clive Owen. That and the Nancy story was kind of boring but at least it had Bruce.

  35. This wasn’t the cluster-fuck I was lead to believe it was but I still can’t get fully behind it (though I enjoyed it more or less). I’d be nicer to it if they removed the final story from the movie, the Nancy revenge one. That one was terrible and felt like it went on forever even though it wasn’t that long. A runner up would be the awful opening Marv story of him going after the jocks. My favorite bit of what-the-fuck is character actor Christopher Meloni popping up and they build his character as a foil for Brolin and then they changed their mind on that idea and instead of removing them from the story they just have him randomly murder his partner and then himself, all because Eva Green is THAT hot (which the story already established).

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