Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez, 2014)

4.5/10
Where does the time go? Sequel talk was fired up almost immediately after the first Sin City was a success. It seemed like a no brainer in the dawning time of the summer blockbuster franchise where multiple installments were not just hoped for but expected. Nine years later, we finally have a Sin City 2, and I have to think anyone waiting for it on tenterhooks would have to be disappointed. I really liked the first one (still do) but in watching A Dame to Kill For, it's hard not to feel like all the best material was crammed into the original, and what makes up A Dame to Kill For is the "B" material (or worse).
The problem for me is that the central yarn is a crashing bore. In the original all the stories were interesting so flitting between them was never dull. Here the bulk of the movie centers on Dwight and his dame. Dwight was an average character at best when he was played by Clive Owen in the first one. Josh Brolin sucks whatever little charisma Dwight had out of his portrayal completely, and it doesn't help that he has to deliver an endless stream of deadly serious but mostly corny monologues. Monologuing was in abundance in the first one but it's ratcheted up to a ridiculous degree in this one. No one can do anything without an accompanying voice over telling us exactly what they're doing, in some gritty and hard-boiled fashion.
Mickey Rourke is back as Marv but sounds more mush-mouthed than ever. That combined with his weirdly pudgy, makeup-caked face only made me think of how much better he was in the first one. Same goes for Jessica Alba, who can't cope with the heavier lifting she has to do here and frankly embarrasses herself in scenes that call for her to do much more than look pretty. Eva Green fares a little better in the femme fatale role and Rosario Dawson is what you'd expect.
Powers Boothe is good reprising his role as the villainous Senator Roark, and so is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a new role. Their scenes together are by far the strength of the movie. Bruce Willis shows up but almost out of obligation more than anything else, as he adds absolutely nothing to the film.
The first Sin City was very over the top with its violence and noirish elements, but it was somehow a lot of fun too. This one looks great visually, but that's about where the fun stops. It's just too bogged down with uninteresting plots, poor acting, and lame monologues to come anywhere close to the good times of the original.

From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996)

6/10
I was in the mood for something light and I'd never seen this one all the way through, so I put it on. It has a really great first half, and Clooney and Tarantino (despite the latter receiving a Razzie nom for worst actor) have surprisingly good chemistry. I'm also a fan of both Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis so their presence was welcome. When the movie breaks off into its second half (the siege on the vampires at the bar), it becomes significantly less interesting and doesn't appear to know what to do with itself. Tarantino may have written the screenplay (so of course he ends up with Salma Hayek's foot in his mouth) but the jarring discrepancy between a great first half and a spoiled second half was a criticism I had of Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Maybe these two are best kept apart, in the end.

Machete (Ethan Maniquis & Robert Rodriguez, 2010)

7/10
Another fun distraction that pretty much delivered what it says on the tin, I can't find much to fault Machete for, but I didn't love it either. As one would expect from a trailer fleshed out into a feature length movie, at times the joke seems to run a little long and the movie gets bogged down when it, you know, has to actually be a movie. Probably would have been great fun to see in a packed theatre with a bunch of friends though. I was actually a little surprised at how graphic the gore was...credit to Robert Rodriguez for not backing down at all. And it's nice to see perennial sidekick Danny Trejo get his day in the sun.

Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez, 2007)

7/10
A pretty good movie in its own right but unlike Death Proof, I didn't think it was very much the "grindhouse" movies of old. It started out that way but then with the whole biochemical stuff and the massive explosions it started feeling a bit too over-the-top and CGI'd out, which I felt took away from the experience a bit. In any event, it had some really funny scenes and some cool action, so I can't dislike it too much.