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| 4/21/2004 |
| Kill Bill vol. 2: Bring out the Gimp |
A Movie Review
by Wes Bennett
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“Kill Bill, vol. 2” achieves what “Raiders of The Lost Ark” did for the Saturday morning serials of the 1940s. Quentin Tarantino has completed his masterful saga that lovingly celebrates the martial arts genre, while in many ways transcending it.
At first glance, the “Kill Bill” story chronicles a somewhat simple revenge story. But Tarantino is able to build an incredible amount of complexity and complications into the film with quirky characters and brilliant dialogue. I seriously doubt that any other director working today could take a revenge story such as this and produce a film so fascinating, hard-hitting and engrossing. Tarantino has reached an elite level in terms of writing great dialogue and directing action sequences of such a high level of complexity.
"Kill Bill, vol. 2" begins as the Bride (Uma Thurman), whose real name is Beatrix Kiddo, resumes her quest for vengeance against the remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who brutally attacked her several years earlier. First up is Bill's kid brother Budd (Michael Madsen of “Reservoir Dogs”) followed by Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah of “Splash”) before she can kill Bill (David Carradine of the “Kung Fu” series), her former lover and father of her child.
It’s obvious that Tarantino is an artist, filled with a great love for movies in general. A work of art like this, is the complete opposite of a by-the-numbers movie made only for the purpose of financial gain such as “Tomb Raider II” or “S.W.A.T.” The “Kill Bill” films are different from nearly every other release in the past few years because they are essentially art films with a 60 million dollar budget. In my opinion, Tarentino will always be an independent filmmaker, no matter how large and mainstream his films become.
As is usually the case in his films, Tarantino gets great performances from his stars. Not only that, Tarantino is smart enough to resurrect actors such as John Travolta and Pam Grier who have long been forgotten. This time he brings back David Carradine, who nails the part of Bill by projecting a confident aura of depravity with his grizzled face and deep voice. Though Carradine had a classic performance in the 1979 western “The Long Riders,” he has been sadly underused in films for many years now.
There are many absolutely brilliant moments in the film including the entire “buried alive” sequence, Beatrix’s training scene, Bill’s “Superman-Clark Kent” monologue and the hard-hitting battle between The Bride and Elle Driver, climaxing with the crushing of an eyeball.
The original cut of “Kill Bill” was 3 hours and 10 minutes, but the combined length of the separate volumes is 3 hours and 58 minutes. That means there is an extra 48 minutes that audiences were originally not supposed to see.
The only problem with “Kill Bill vol. 2,” is that it sometimes gives screen time to secondary characters and flashbacks that are neither intriguing enough or relevant to the story to merit inclusion. One could argue that as great as the two films are, they border on being self-indulgent. If some of the chapters were removed and other scenes were trimmed, one can start to imagine an absolutely brilliant single film that is not split up into two parts.
But in the end the negatives are minimal. “Kill Bill vol. 2” doesn’t just complete the story, it fully develops the characters and adds greater meaning to everything that happened in “vol. 1.” For nearly the entire film, one is fascinated and riveted. This is unquestionably a must-see film in the theater, and a must-own film on DVD. Tarantino is a truly talented artist and I look forward to his epic-war film, “The Inglorious Bastards” which we hopefully can expect in the next few years. |
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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