Kill Bill Vol. 2: Review By derekmay

We all know the old adage “sequels are never as good as the original.” Well, now we’ll have to clarify that to include the second halves of movies split in two. I’ll admit that I was stoked beyond words about this movie, but after seeing it, I feel a little let down.

Now that’s not to say that this is a poor movie. Far from it. But it’s a trap – a trap that was laid by the super overflowing abundance of cool that was Vol 1. Unfortunately this time round, we get less cool, less action, less sweet dialogue and more of everything we’d always applauded Quentin for NOT doing. In other words, we get a pretty typical movie.

Vol 2 picks up right where Vol 1 left off, however in story only. The hunt continues for the baddies that wronged our beloved Bride, but the fire seems to be gone, replaced by a mediocre spark of vengeance. We get to see all the things that were so cleverly hid from us in the first installment. Bill’s face appears off the bat, we learn what really happened at the wedding chapel, and eventually all the secrets are revealed. While that’s not necessarily bad, it’s non-linear style still doesn’t hide that fact that we’re fed the information in long, drawn out courses of scenes that are well-acted, well-directed, well-edited, but somehow still lacking the punch they had in the first.

Anyone who’s seen the first installment knows how good Uma portrays our vengeful Bride. So suffice it to say that she continues to dominate the screen here. Yet, we also get two incredibly surprising performances as well-- one good, one bad. David Carradine does the best work of his career. His soft-spoken, eerily ruthless portrayal of Bill is as frightening when you look in his eyes as it was when we only heard his voice. He’s perfect here, and no one could have done it better.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the usually reliable Michael Madsen, who turns in an awkwardly pathetic performance as Bud. From what we’d seen in Vol 1, I was expecting the king-daddy-cool of killers. Instead we’re treated to a fat, lazy, drunk who is more laughable than fearful. His demise is also (while clever) thoroughly disappointing. Quick to recover though, Quentin’s choice of Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver turns out to be fortuitous as she chews the scenery with sexy evil badness.

Perhaps Quentin had simply used up most of his cool in Vol 1. There’s nothing as intriguing as the Bride vs. the Crazy 88 or vs. Gogo or vs. O-Ren. There’s no deliciously evil background on our killers. There’s in fact only one interesting fight scene. And to add insult to injury, while Bill is obviously defeated in the end, it is done so benignly that it makes me wonder what it was all about in the first place. I mean, a man like Quentin MUST understand that the final confrontation between the Bride and Bill needed to be the greatest battle ever (especially after the way O-Ren died). But Q choose to go a… different… direction. I, for one, felt cheated.

With all of these faults Vol 2 is still a very decent movie, just not the movie I expected. The acting is top notch, the style is pure Q, and the story is interesting, if not wholly engaging. This is the Jackie Brown to Pulp Fiction. Vol 2 is a character study, a revisit into the pasts of some of our old friends. But it’s a shadow on the wall of the blazing hell-fire that was Vol 1. See it, but see it for what it is, not for what it could have been.

I guess now we know why Q never made sequels.