Kill Bill (vol 2)

Synopsis

The Bride (Uma Thurman) continues her killing spree as she crosses the people off her list after they wiped out her wedding party. And final stop: Bill.

What I Thought

This is a very different movie than Kill Bill Vol 1. Containing almost no violence, no blood, and more dialog, all it really shares with the first one are the characters. This wouldn't, in and of itself, be a bad thing if Tarantino had material for two whole movies. Unfortunately, this installment just drags and drags and drags. You know this was supposed to be one long movie, right? And the studio forced him to cut it in half because no one wanted to see a 4 hour movie? Well, he put all the good stuff into the first one, then realized it and had to bloat the second one with filler. You know what I'm talking about, that rather meandering style usually relegated to high school term papers just to get to that 2000 word count.

So, Uma is Uma, she's fabulous. She can definitely kick anybody's butt. But the quirkiness from the first movie is gone. There's really only one fight (with whatshername, the woman with the eyepatch), and it lacks the almost ballet-like fighting sequences and swordplay. Don't get me wrong, I deplore violence for violence's sake, and the first movie was a bit too bloodsoaked, blah blah blah. But it was darned fun to watch, especially the majestic dance that is Uma fighting a roomful of Crazy 88's.

We also don't have the fun characters of the first movie, the assassin mom, awesome Lucy Liu, the Japanese scoolgirl. Eyepatch lady doesn't even change her eyepatch! Grrrrr.

The first movie also had many more things to look at. This movie had 2, count 'em 2, sets. Boooring. She goes after whatshisname, then the eyepatch lady, and then Bill.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad movie. You have to tell yourself as I did that it's really only half a movie, much more so than Mr. Jackson's Opus. I would recommend watching Vol 1 and then immediately seeing this one, so that your need for action is slated with the first movie and your need for storyline completion ends with Vol 2.

And wait for the DVD that will (hopefully) contain an integrated Kill Bill. I hope that Tarantino will take the opportunity to cut the fluff from the second half and restore it once again to one movie, as it was meant to be.

All photos and text copyright Ryszard Kilarski, unless otherwise noted. Clip art, drawings, paintings are either free domain or copyrighted by the artists.