Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004)

I've made no bones about my gripe that the Kill Bill duology should have been one film. I think that, as independent films, the series is total rubbish, a series of uneven vignettes, and much like watching any ten consecutive episodes of 24.

Watching them back to back is a more liberating experience, giving the more even feel that I'm sure Quentin Tarantino intended when he made his ten-chapter revenge epic. On its own, though, Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is much more even than its predecessor.

After dispatching the first two names on her list, the still-unnamed Bride (Uma Thurman, who flexes her acting muscles here more than in Vol. 1) has three more to go - retired Budd (Michael Madsen), who had some sort of fall-out with his brother, presumably over the killings at El Paso; "hateful bitch" Elle Driver (the brutal Daryl Hannah), who is every much the Bride's match sans one eye; and finally Bill (David Carradine), Budd's brother, the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Flashbacks tell the story of the killings in the El Paso wedding chapel that "put this whole gory story into motion" and the training that the Bride endured under the merciless white-eyebrowed Pai Mei.

Vol. 2 is certainly more judicious in its use of nondiegetic music than Vol. 1, which at times felt more like a songbook of Tarantino's favorites (I'm thinking specifically of his use of Santa Esmeralda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" during the final battle with Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii, which should be a tense battle scene between equals but gets thrown off by the catchy/hip Latin beat). Malcolm MacLaren's "About Her" doesn't seem to fit in Vol. 2, but the rest of the soundtrack - which is dominated by Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores like A Fistful of Dollars - lends the film that epic feel that perhaps the more modern Vol. 1 was lacking.

The acting is also... well, it's present. Vol. 1 is more of a popcorn film, with samurai swords and quick action cuts, while Vol. 2 relies on acting and character development to move the plot forward. With the flashbacks, it feels more like a complete story, especially since the "Last Chapter" gives us the ultimate confrontation between Bill and the Bride (who, yes, is finally named in Vol. 2) and closes the story [even though QT has said he's got plans for a third film]. The dialogue, too, is more even, with characters consistently remaining in a set speech pattern, without the fluctuations that made Vol. 1 so distracting.

If I have an overarching complaint about Vol. 2, it's that Bill, the assassin mastermind we spent so much time hating, becomes too sympathetic - or at the very least, too interesting of a character to kill off. Maybe that's my own personal hang-up, but Bill seems to be the only character who expresses any degree of remorse over what he did to the Bride (Budd does say that she deserves her revenge, but he's not above shooting her with rock salt and burying her alive... so that negates that idea). Plus, the Bride has tears in her eyes as {perhaps this is a spoiler, but the movie is four years old, as well as pretty much telling you how it ends in the freaking title of the film} she delivers the killing blow to Bill. What should have been a moment of finality is instead an ambiguous note of "Is this the right way to end?"

Perhaps the Bride got her emotions too involved with Bill. Ah, well. Revenge is, after all, a dish best served cold.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)

In mining for films to review, I've been digging back into movies that I love but haven't seen in a while. Quentin Tarantino's fourth film, the first volume of his Kill Bill revenge epic, fell squarely in that category, so I felt it needed to be viewed again.

I'm almost sorry I did that. KB1 is not as good as I remember it being. Though it's still rip-roaring good fun, it's not exactly high cinema. Is there anything wrong with that? Not really... but this is one of those postmodernist moments where the simulation - my memory of the film - is better than the actual thing.

What I loved about the movie - and still do - is its unique structure, which divides the story into ten nonchronological chapters over two movies. The basic throughline of the movie is the story of The Bride's quest for revenge against her assassin cohorts who tried to kill her when she left their organization. The Bride (Uma Thurman) has five names on her list, and in the first volume she gets to two of them - O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox).

It's tricky to review Vol. 1 without acknowledging Vol. 2, so at least some comparisons are necessary. Vol. 1 is a lot more action-packed and a lot more colorful than its successor, but I'm not sure that makes it a great movie. It's a lot of fun, for sure; the action scenes, incredibly violent though they are, are rousing at a visceral level, instilling "Ew" and "Ah" at all the right moments, even on subsequent viewings. The direction, despite being lifted as "homages" to other works, is visually stimulating, with angles conveying more at times than the performances.

Of course, this being a Tarantino movie, we expect two things: a powerhouse of a soundtrack and snarky dialogue that predates Diablo Cody by more than a decade. On the first count, Vol. 1 delivers in a big way; the songs Tarantino chooses fit perfectly with the scenes on screen, but at times it seems like too much of a good thing, at times overtly showy. Then again, this is the film that introduced "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" and "Woo Hoo" to American listeners, so it's certainly not all bad.

As for the dialogue, I used to love its snappiness. Now I look at Vol. 1 and realize just how uneven it is. The Bride (whose name is cleverly never mentioned in the first film, although you can see it if you freeze-frame her plane ticket) alternates between intellectualism and street speak, sometimes distractingly so within the same scene. Though the writing is clever and well-organized, it's this dialectic disparity (which fortunately seems rectified in the second installment) that hurts the overall authorial reputation Tarantino earned from the likes of Pulp Fiction.

I suppose I would like Vol. 1 more if it were coupled with Vol. 2 in one movie-going experience; that would probably launch into great movie status, since a four-hour movie wouldn't be as easily dwarfed by these shortcomings. The thing is, I don't believe Tarantino set out to make an enduring classic of cinema. I believe he wanted to make his own movie that captured all the fun and excitement of the campy flicks he grew up with. And in that endeavor, he succeded. "A roaring rampage of revenge," the film describes itself. Oh, it roars, and it rampages, and it leaves the audience slightly breathless.

Perfect it isn't, but bloody satisfying? You betcha, kiddo.