Kill Bill vol.2 - It's Done

my rating: Nathan's rating:

There were a couple other movies to choose from this weekend, but I knew that Nathan - eliminating those he's already seen and those he'd refuse to - would narrow it down to: the one with a chick killing a bunch of people, and the one with a dude killing a bunch of people. I suggested Kill Bill vol.2 rather than The Punisher.

In my review of vol.1, I said I'd wait until I'd seen the rest of the movie to decide whether it was any good or not. And my verdict: It's got some really nice style to it, but the story and characters are a bore.

The references to the old movie genres of Tarantino's youth are fascinating, and totter skillfully between irony and parody. Marvel at the deco black and white opening credits! Thrill to the spaghetti-western background music! Cheer for the kung-fu sound effects and camera tricks! Be amazed at the zombiesque grave scene! Or not. OK, Quentin does it with more intelligence and sophistication than the Wayanses, but that just makes it more pretentious than funny, because there's no real depth behind it.

The one thing that I will say in praise of the story is that, after 3-4 hours of Beatrice telling us that she's going to Kill Bill, the climax of the film is not simply her finding Bill and killing him. There's a little surprise that derails her from that agenda just long enough to provide some actual suspense to the climax (will she go through with it or not?), rather than just another martial arts demo. In addition we get a little monolog about the nature of identity, as exemplified by Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent. Not exactly a great revelation to anyone who's thought about the subject (and further undermined by a heretical comment about the art on Superman comics - he's talking about the era in which they were illustrated by the legendary Curt Swan - not being very good) but it impressed Nathan.

The whole movie seems like an exercise in cinematic sadism, as well. People are killed in deliberately gruesome ways, and even when they're not actually killed (such as Uma Thurman's character being shot in the head, but surviving) they're badly abused. And the viewer has to sit and watch it.

Like I said, Tarantino's got style. But much like a Saturday Night Live skit that just can't be sustained for a 90-minute feature film, that's not enough to support the two-part future-multi-DVD indulgence which is Kill Bill.