Sin City 2: Another Unnecessary Sequel

Sin City 2? Wasn’t Sin City bad enough? Oh, sorry. The movie is what I meant, not the comic.

Sin City, the comic book written and illustrated by Frank Miller, didn't screw around.

Miller grabbed our throats and dragged us down the mean streets of a big, dark, ugly and violent metropolis found not on a map but inside the novels of tough, brass-knuckled urban poets like Mickey Spillaine, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and Raymond Chandler.

Using elegant, no-nonsense prose that felt like a well-aimed kick to the balls, they wrote brutal stories about bad cops, crooked politicians, hookers, junkies, ex-cons and dreams gone rotten. Seeing the gritty realism Miller brought to his earlier work on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns, it was obvious he admired these writers very much. Sin City was a worthy addition to the genre.

Sin City was a damned good comic book. Now, it's a bad movie and Miller can't blame anybody else but himself this time.

So what the hell happened? For years, Miller wisely resisted the seductive bribes from Hollywood producers wanting to do a movie adaptation of Sin City. No, sorry, not interested. "A screenwriter is like a fire hydrant," he cynically explained, "and the dogs are lined up down the street." (Hmmm, still haven't forgiven those bastards for Robocop 2, Frank?)

But it was Robert Rodriguez (the Spy Kids trilogy, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn) who changed Miller's mind. Unfortunately, despite the heartfelt admiration the two men have for each other's work, Sin City is a failure because Rodriguez’s interpretation betrays the comic book.

Orson Welles observed, "making movies is the biggest train set a kid's ever had," and Rodriguez is emblematic of that famous quote. Throughout his career, he's happily been one of the Lost Boys of Neverland who doesn't want to grow up and is proud of it. Sometimes, Rodriguez’s talent allows him to get away with his joyous immaturity. Not Sin City.