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Kill Bill Vol. 2


Maybe it was the extended lay-off between Volumes 1 &2. Maybe Tarantino has started to believe his own press that he really can do no wrong - or maybe it was just a very bad idea to split one very long film into two slightly-longer-than-average films.

Either way, the result is the same. Kill Bill Volume 2 is a disappointment.

It really does pain me to say this because Volume 1 was my favourite movie of last year. A turbo-charged adrenaline rush that powered its way through a catalogue of QT's favourite films, nicking the best bits for itself as it went. It made Uma Thurman a bona-fide action hero, the spectacularly-choreographed fight sequences made the effects in the 'Matrix' sequels look like an awful waste of money and it ended in such a way that left you gasping for breath and desperate for more.

Which is exactly where Volume 2 falls over. The opening twenty minutes are, without doubt, the dullest twenty minutes of ANY Tarantino film to date. Oh sure, there's the much vaunted return of the celebrated dialogue that QT is famed for, much of which was missing from Volume 1 but the trouble is that most of the lines spilling from the characters mouth seem forced and unnatural. Do you remember the mid-90's when every writer/director was trying to cash in on the Tarantino phenomenon by giving their characters memorably witty lines, in the hope that film buffs would end up quoting them endlessly? Well, that's the sort of dialogue that we're served up with here. "Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and Bac-ey," quips Michael Madsen's character at one point - honestly. Mr. Blonde would have cut his own ear off if he'd had to say that in 'Reservoir Dogs'...

The real shame of Volume 2 is that the storyline itself is actually probably stronger than it's predecessor. We get to learn all about The Bride and how she came to become a feared assassin. We learn just what it was that drove Bill to shoot and leave her for dead and we get to learn more about all the other members of Bill's deadly 'Viper Assassin Squad'. Marry this together with a homage to the training sequences in classic martial arts movies and we should end up with a huge winner - but we don't. Unfortunately, the pacing is all wrong and the movie hits it's stride in all the wrong places - it's starts and ends with a whimper and the bangs are clumsily placed mid-movie.

Having said that, when the bangs do arrive, they do so in style. The fights between The Bride and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) and Bud (Michael Madsen) would have passed muster in Volume 1, but the climactic showdown with David Carradine's title character is curiously muted and, once again, strangled by unnecessary dialogue (check out Bill's painful 'Superman' speech - ouch).

Of course, I'm sure splitting the movie in two won't do the box office takings any harm at all but I'm hoping against hope that the nice Mr Tarantino will do the right thing and get his editing tools out, get rid of all the spurious material and splice both volumes together into one single action epic.

5/10

Sean G
Picture from official site click to visit  Read Sean's review of Volume one