It has been almost 10 years since the release of the first Sin City, which was on the forefront of digital film making. Director Robert Rodriguez fully embraced the film to digital transition early on jumped at the chance to use HD digital cameras and green screens to make the world of the graphic novel Sin City come to life on screen. Equal parts eye popping and absurd, Sin City made a big splash when it was released in 2005.

So here we are 9 years later with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. It took Rodriguez and company a long time to get the sequel into production and finished. The movies are very similar. They both adhere to the black and white artwork with pops of color of the graphic novels. They both contain and shuffle around the plots of three Sin City stories (“Just Another  Saturday Night”, “A Dame To Kill For” and “The Long, Bad Night”. “Bad” was never published and is far and away my favorite piece of this collection). There are a few returning characters (some of whom have been recast) and a fair portion of these stories take place before the first movie, so it can get a little confusing if you haven’t seen it in some time.

Now visually, this movie is often a technical marvel (just like the first). There is are some crazy looking scenes and transitions here. It’s often times a gorgeous piece of work. The characters are heavy, the violence almost poetic. I dig noir material, so I just smile at the super corny lines.

Now content wise, if you didn’t like the first movie, this won’t change your mind. It’s more brutal stories. Sin City is filthy. It’s full of horrible people. There’s no way around it and that’s the point of this world. Some of them get off being so awful, others are awful because that’s how they have to survive. Men and women are both the villains, the victims and the heroes. Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) is the definition of a scumbag politician. Ava (Eva Green) is a scheming, conniving, stone cold, manipulative, black widow. Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is completely bad ass and awesome.

I had a good time watching this, although I think that Johnny’s story blows away the other two by a mile. I always wanted to see what was happening to him and the conclusion of his story is super gnarly. The population of Sin City is a memorable one and is a trip to see. It was nice to return to a place that I’m really glad doesn’t actually exist (at least I hope it doesn’t).