Details
- Title
- Kill Bill, Vol 2
- Director
- Quentin Tarantino
- Cast
- Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba, Gordon Liu
- Length
- 134 min.
- Released
- 2004
Review
Too many words. Not enough kicking.
In short, this was, like the first half, alternately moderately entertaining and maddeningly irritating. Quentin Tarantino sure knows a lot about movies. He'd make a better critic than director if only he weren't such an annoying person (Smugger than Kevin Smith, more manic than Chris Tucker).
Like part one, this plays like an extended series of high-budget references to classic '70s kung fu pictures and spaghetti westerns. This time the references are even less thinly veiled. Where, in part one, it felt like you found Waldo when you recognized the two measures of the inexplicable Krautrock (Neu!) soundtrack to Master of the Flying Guillotine, here it seems that the redoubtable RZA simply put on a couple Ennio Morricone records and flipped back and forth between them. There are a few scenes that have some power, then you look closely and notice it is exclusively because of Ennio. At least they robbed from the best.
Tarantino is a skilled filmmaker. This cannot be disputed. However, skill and talent are not the same thing. And Tarantino is as untalented a director as you can find.
At least Gordon Liu's vast kung fu talents are not as wasted in this half. His teacher character gets the opportunity to show off a little bit, in what are easily the most entertaining sequences in the whole combined film.
If you're a Tarantino-phile, go see it, but spare me your sycophantic blather. If not, forget about it, stay home, rent Master of the Flying Guillotine and Shaolin Challenges Ninja, enjoy the low-budget genius and leave Mr. Tarantino to his onanistic excess.
- Rating
- 3/8
- Reviewer
- Pat Jackson
- Published