Several years ago a young director by the name of Quentin Tarantino burst onto the film scene with his low budget, bloody hit “”Reservoir Dogs,”” which was followed by an even bloodier film “”Pulp Fiction.”” Blood and guts aside, what set Tarantino apart from other directors was the crisp, hipster dialog, and his gonzo, go for broke, sensibilities. Now Tarantino has returned with “”Kill Bill,”” a two part homage to Kung Fu action films.
Uma Thurman is a former member of a secret hit squad who gets double crossed by her boss and former team members. On her wedding day, they come in and kill her and the entire wedding party. When she awakes from her 4 year coma, she has one thing on her mind – vengeance. After months of griping, and bitching about the marketing effort put into this flick, and the incredibly cheesy stunt of splitting a 3 hr movie into two parts, purely to force people to pay for what essentially is one movie twice, I walked into the theater ready to hate this film. After watching it and thinking about it for a few days I still don’t know if I liked it or not. Certainly there were a few elements about it that I liked; especially Uma Thurman, who gave one of the best performances of her career. While watching the film, you couldn’t escape the fact that you were watching only half a movie. The plotting, and pacing seemed incredibly slow, it felt like I was in the theater for two – two and a half hrs. And the film is only 93 minutes! Almost every scene went about four or five minutes too long. The fight sequences, had the same problem that the Matrix Reloaded had, which was; they were really cool the first few times that you saw them, or the beginning of a sequence made you sit up and take notice, but after awhile they just got tiring and boring. My main complaint with the film, beyond the pacing, is that its obviously geared towards the crowd who loves kung fu action films, and admires the kitschy quality to them. As there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of homage’s to the kung fu genre, fans of the genre may greet some of the in-jokes with the great reverence and winks and nods, that Tarantino meant them to be, unfortunately, I’m not an expert of the genre so a majority of these moments felt forced and fell flat for me. I love action films as much as the next person, but I also need some sort of plot to go along with the action, and K.B.’s overly simplistic, cliched filled plot leaves you not particularly caring about anyone.Tarantino is like a child with a new expensive toy, he used almost every directorial trick in the book including using black and white shots, extreme close-ups, flashbacks, lots of comical shots of blood gushing out of severed limbs, slow-mos, and a really long animated sequence that seemed out of place and brought the forward momentum of the film to a screeching halt. Like “”Matrix Reloaded,”” “”Kill Bill”” would have been a much better film if it wasn’t for the directorial excesses and had better editing. Did I mention this thing is only 93 minutes?I would talk about Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu’s performances and roles in this film, but to be honest, they had so little amount of screen time that they barely warrant a mention. They barely said and did just enough to earn themselves a “”SAG”” card. Sure their characters were pivotal to the whole revenge plotline, but basically they were dispatched rather “”quickly”” and easily. Liu’s entire story arc is told through the previously mentioned animated sequence.One other major gripe about “”Kill Bill”” is the absolutely horrendous, nails on the chalkboard soundtrack. Yes, I get the in-joke with the soundtrack, and that he was trying to remain true to the genre, but Tarantino movies, if nothing else, always have fantastic soundtracks, K.B.’s opening scene starts with this fantastic, melow song with a Nancy Sinatra singing “”Bang, Bang He Shot Me Down…”” but then the soundtrack just goes downhill from there, and normally a bad soundtrack wouldn’t matter as much, but as I said this one was loud and screechy throughout most of the movie and literally started to give me a headache. However, the theme that kicked off the end fight sequence kicked all kinds of ass, if you watched the trailer then you know the music and scene that I’m talking about.In the end, whether the decision to split “”Kill Bill”” into two films is a good one or not, is too early to tell, at only 93 minutes it felt long, drawn out, and the last 15 minute fight sequence wears you out and makes you glad for the break, but you also really feel like you have only watched half a film. “”Kill Bill”” does not suck, but it’s nowhere near as original or good as Tarantino’s other writing/directorial efforts either. Final Grade CKill Bill Reviewby Michelle AlexandriaOctober 9, 2003