By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 6, 2014)

Co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller have put the band back together to reprise their “Raymond Chandler and Mikey Spillane go on an ether binge” shtick in this sequel to their 2005 collaboration, Sin City, with mixed results.

As before, Miller’s eponymous graphic novel serves as the source material, and Rodriguez’s technical wizardry renders the requisite nightmarish noir milieu in striking chiaroscuro. Hard-boiled and ultra-violent to the point of verging on self-parody, this second omnibus of loosely-connected vignettes nonetheless delivers the goods to anyone who enjoyed the first installment (I stand guilty as charged).

Inversely, anyone who couldn’t connect to the previous (and similarly over-the-top) outing will likely remain underwhelmed. A sizable contingent from the previous cast returns, including Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe and Bruce Willis (with a nod and a wink to The Sixth Sense). The hands-down scene-stealer is Eva Green, as the femme fatale to kill for.