Movie Review: Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

Quentin Tarantino's high sucessful Kill Bill. Volume 1 was huge hit with audiences and critics (myself included). In fact, Tarantino filmed so much of Kill Bill that he had to divide the movie into two parts. The movie together is known as the 'whole bloody affair' and in my mind this is the weaker film. A fact which is ironic, considering that this and vol.1 were technically all one movie. This one is slower paced, highly more emotional, and focused more on Tarantino's trademark of long, intense scenes. This one follows The Bride (brilliantly acted out by british actress Uma Thurman) as she hunts down three people on her list: Budd (Madsen), One-Eyed Ellie (Daryl Hannah) and yes, Bill himself (David Carradine) Her revenge is intertwined with scenes of how she came to be the bad-ass rebel she is today. Now when I first saw this film a while back, the first thing I noticed upon seeing this on Netflix was how slow this movie was compared to the first installment. This is a Tarantino movie, while the other one was the prerequisite to this one. The dialogue is still brilliantly written (Carradine delivers his opinions on comic books before his built up death) and that is what I took away from this film. Kill Bill Volume 1 is all about the action sequences, and that in the end is what I took away from that first film. This film however is driven by dialogue and emotion and cinematography. It's an exercise in film rather than movie-making. Tarantino also has Samuel L. Jackson fill a very small role in this movie and despite the fact that he's only on screen for a short time, his role is brilliant and maybe my favorite in the entire movie. Now this movie is much more centered on less its original story line of Thurman's character (whose name is finally revealed by the way) and focuses more on trying to incorporate techniques and references from other classic kung fu films. When (SPOILER) The Bride is finally reunited with her daughter, its the only moment in this entire epic where I cannot tell what Quentin Tarantino was thinking when he wrote this. She's crying, but where not? Is that supposed to touch on the lack of emotion in kung fu cinema? Or is it possibly the fact that Tarantino cannot throw deep emotion into a work so polluted with violence and revenge and destruction? Who knows, but its the only part of this that I have never been able to fully make sense of. Overall, Kill Bill. Volume 2 is a movie that you have to go into expecting different themes and messages then from the action-packed and adrenaline filled first one. Three stars.