Review of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) by Brian B — 19 Dec 2015

When movie sequels are released, the common audience and critics consensus is usually that the sequel isn't as good as the original. Some sequels are pretty good but most people view the original as the better movie when compared to each other. I have seen very few sequels which are widely considered to be better than the original. Sadly, this is a case where the sequel to an already bad movie is so horrible that it makes the original one look like a masterpiece.

The Bride is back and she is continuing her quest for vengeance. In the previous film, she killed Vernita Green and O-Ren Ishii. In this movie, she must kill Bill's brother Budd, Elle, and Bill. Many things happen during her quest and she faces many life threatening situations so killing them proves to be quite a difficult task.

My first issue with this movie is that it contains many pointless scenes which drag the movie out even more. The movie could've been cut down a lot more if these scenes were removed. While it's nice to see her training montage and the massacre on the day of the wedding rehearsal, these scenes slow the movie down and they only show things that I have already been made aware of or am not interested in learning about. I wanted to get back to the main action and I didn't want to keep on seeing pointless interruptions which I found to be uninteresting.

Another huge problem with the film is that it has much more talking and less action than the first film. Volume 1 was much more fast paced and it had more scenes of action and fighting. However, since the pacing in this movie is much slower, it makes it harder for fans of the original who became use to its fast pacing to get into this one and become engaged. Come to think of it, I don't think that Kill Bill ever needed to be divided up into 2 parts anyways. It should've just been one movie and it would've been a better film as a result since it would fix the problems with the pacing from the 2nd movie.

Also, the main villain (Bill) feels very one-note and is very dull. Even though David Carradine gives a magnificent performance, I didn't like his character at all. He also gets some of the most stupid lines in the film including a theory that The Bride is a killer on the inside and that she wears her more mature self as a disguise similar to Superman (because as we all know, soldiers are destined to kill people for the rest of their lives since they once did it on the frontlines). One thing that I really hate about the film is that the more interesting characters are killed off first. Elle is easily the best character in the movie since she has the most personality. Also, Budd's trailer home provides a great atmosphere with gorgeous cinematography and his performance is filled with charisma. I wished that the film was more about them then some crazy psychopath and a one-note main villain. I guess the moral to this movie is that the more interesting your character is, the quicker you are killed off.

Also, the ending to this film is an enormous disaster and I could not feel any form of enjoyment after the movie ended regardless how hard I tried. One of my complaints with the first film was that the fight between The Bride and O-Ren Ishii didn't contain much swordplay and had more instances of them standing around and talking. I didn't think that the final fight could be any worse in this film, but it is. It is even more drawn out and there is even less fighting between them then there was in the original film. There were a few scenes when Bill shot her with a dart and held her at gunpoint, but those scenes really didn't contain any fighting so I was just waiting for those scenes to end so that the movie could get to the actual swordplay between them. Also, what makes the ending even worse is that when she reunites with her daughter after so long, I couldn't feel any sympathy for her whatsoever as I thought that she would make a horrible mother based on what she did (this is something she even admits to by saying that she can never live a normal life). Throughout the 2 films, she chopped numerous people's body parts off, killed a mother in front of her daughter, ripped someone's eyeball out and stepped on it, slammed a doctor's head between a door until he died, and many other things too. Because of this, it makes the film's ending harder to swallow and take seriously as a happy ending.

The film is a little less sadistic than the first film, but it still contains a fair amount of sadism. Examples of it include someone's eye being pulled out and stepped on, a man getting bitten by a snake over and over again and dying a painful death because of it, and a blind woman running around and screaming in agony. Because of these scenes, the film feels very crass as a result and I wish that Tarantino would just grow up already and use violence maturely and not just for the sake of it.

In conclusion, this movie is a disaster and it should be avoided at all costs. It does have some good things to it such as great acting, some of the action is pretty good, and, while maybe a little less impressive, the cinematography is pretty good in some scenes (mainly the scenes which take place in the desert). However, these few flaws don't even come close to overshadowing the numerous flaws it has with pointless scenes, pacing issues, unlikeable characters, a horrible ending, and sadism. This film is completely garbage.