As with its predecessor, “Kill Bill: Volume 2” is a film of incredibly refined technique, of beautifully and intensely choreographed fight scenes, of rich cinematography and art direction, of perfect and deliberate framing. Also like its predecessor it glorifies the sloppiness of the B movie: there are intentionally bad sound edits, intentional inconsistencies between one shot and the next, and ham-handed dialogue. But, to my surprise, all this has become just another part of the landscape. We accept it like any other stylistic choice.
The movie is basically a battle of wills between Bill and The Bride. You might at first not notice what a fine performance Uma Thurman gives. Dialogue is mostly about moving the plot along, which means that she must do everything physically, and she does, not just with her face, but with her whole body. Sure, she had to learn to do all that martial arts stuff, but she also uses her whole being to turn vengeance into a force of nature. So much that she has internalized and left inarticulate comes out in soundless snarls and pained looks of unhealthy, dangerous desire. As Bill, David Carradine carries himself as men sometimes do when they get older, willing to see themselves ironically and critically, but always leisurely. He is still velvet-throated and willing to speak patiently and circuitously, but he is also comfortable with cynicism and ambivalence and no longer sees the point of raising his voice. They are joined by Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen’s assassins, the first just plain mean, and the second wallowing in self-pity and a philosopher’s view that his life of violence deserves to be punished.
So what’s missing from “Volume 2?” Why only three-and-a-half stars? I’m filled with admiration as I look back over Tarantino’s storytelling: his overlapping and twisty web of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and his willingness to not put time limits on his tangents. I’m also impressed that, as in “Pulp Fiction,” he has once again done the impossible by using ridiculous caricatures to make a serious point. But “Volume 2” doesn’t have quite the deranged gusto of “Volume 1.” The division between films left “Volume 1” with most of the beautiful, iconic images (Japan), most of the great music, all of the animation, more of the over-the-top spaghetti Western in-jokes, and most of the really great fight sequences (although it’s surprising how cool you can make a swordfight even when you’re sitting down). “Kill Bill” only needs one gigantic setpiece and that’s the battle with the Crazy 88s, which just happened to fall into the first movie. More than one battle of such scope would feel redundant—think of how the last two “Lord of the Rings” films had two battles-to-end-all-battles each—but “Volume 2” suffers by not having such a high point. There’s the odd, counterintuitive feeling that “Volume 1” is complete on its own, but “Volume 2” might only be completely complete as part of the whole, seen in the same sitting as the rest of “Kill Bill.” It needs additional dramatic arcing to hit its proper ka-blammo.
The elegiac tone of the inevitable fall of Bill actually makes some of the more lighthearted sections of “Volume 2”—The Bride’s training, for instance—seem just a little bit out of place. Or maybe I wasn’t prepared to use my brain the way “Volume 2” wants me to. Tarantino’s use of parody and clichés-we-know-are-clichés to make a point is more sophisticated than the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker parodies of “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun,” and I might have to brood on them some more. Maybe I’m just impossible to please. But don’t be surprised if eight months from now you have to put up with me gushing all over the undivided, 3-hour cut of “Kill Bill” on DVD. And don’t be surprised if there’s another review titled “‘Kill Bill: Volume 2’ Revisited” which starts with the words “now I get it!”
Finished April 17, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
Page one of "Kill Bill: Volume 2." Back to home.