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Kill Bill II

// April 30th, 2004 // Personal

So I’m finally getting round to posting what I thought of the second movie. First off, can I just say that the films would have been much better if they had been released as one movie. I appreciate why this isn’t practical but a lot of the subtlety and nuance was lost in the split. Themes could have been introduced earlier and carried over and the second movie could have been shortened.

I’ll also warn you that the extended entry contains spoilers so read on at your own risk.

So anyway, Volume II. Initial reaction? Not as good as part one. Why? Well I felt the second movie lacked pace. It ambled along building to a very long and drawn out conclusion. It could be said that the pacing of the movie more closely matched the cooling of B’s anger, her lust for revenge becoming more concentrated and less furious but think I’d be reading too much into, what is essentially, a by product of the splitting of the story.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the second movie. It has some excellent scenes where the cinematography is truly exceptional. I loved the whole segment where B is buried alive. Tarantino captures perfectly the claustrophobia of this rather unfortunate situation. I’d love to know if they actually buried a mike to accurately portray the sound of hearing your own grave being filled from the inside.

It also answers some of the questions that you are left pondering at the end of the first movie. The training scene (a rather long flashback whilst B is trying to escape from her coffin) is wonderfully silly and filled with classic 70’s kung fu references.

The only section of the movie that really riled was the ending. Maybe it was due to my forgetting to go to the toilet before we went in but I found my attention beginning to wander. I was desperate for our anti-heroine to “cut to the chase and kill the fucker” but was forced to sit through nearly 30 minutes of in fill and meandering dialog.

Which brings me to another point that I found both interesting but also frustrating. The dialog throughout the movie was classic Tarantino but the pace had been throttled right back. In place of the quick fire back humor of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction was a noticeable relaxation in speed of speech. And whilst this does allow you longer ton appreciate and dwell on what has just been said it also makes for a few frustrating passages.

So in short, Kill Bill II – worth a watch? Definitely! As entertaining as Part 1? No. A better film that part 1? Probably. Invokes a strange desire to buy a big fuck off sword? Without a doubt.