Frank Miller’s hardboiled graphic novel Sin City was first brought to the screen in 2005 by Desperado director Robert Rodriguez. Now the trailer for the second follow up is online.
Looking at my art it probably comes as no surprise that Frank Miller was a major influence for me in my formative years as a comics creator. First intrigued by his Daredevil run in the 80’s, I was completely won over by his Return of the Dark Knight and Batman: Year One, the latter illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. This was superheroes, which I loved at the time, combined with the gritty realism of American noir. When Miller abandoned (more or less) the superhero aspect and went straight for the jugular with his hardboiled series Sin City, I fell in love all over again. Staying true to his trademark of reinventing his drawing style with every new project, Miller seemed to perfect the black and white art with A Dame to Kill For – a book that still stands as an example of how little outline you can get away with.
The 2005 movie stayed true to the visual style and the storyline, keeping almost every line of gravel voice over as it was in the comic. But what felt like a punch in the gut in comic form was beautifully boring on screen. The hardboiled scenes fell flat and the dialogue was cringe-worthy – to me an example that a movie IS in fact another medium and should be treated as such. But as I see it, Sin City paved the way for more comics adaptations (because it was cheap to make) and hopefully brought more readers to the source material. But the best thing Sin City caused, was the reviving of Mickey Rourke’s movie career!
Rourke is back as Marv for A Dame to Kill For, and so is Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe and Bruce Willis – adding Josh Brolin as Dwight (before the plastic surgery that made him look like Clive Owen) and Eva Green as Ava, the Dame herself. Once again spot-on casting. And the trailer promises lots of excessive violence and gratuitous nudity. What’s not to like? Well, we’ll have to wait until August to see for ourselves…
Enjoy the trailer below!