Rate Kill Bill Volume 2

[Desdichado]

Its not that it features "murderous revenge," but that's *all* that it is. You might believe that a tale showcasing nothing more someone's homicidal drive for revenge can, in the right hands, be rich in value but I simply don't. The whole "in the right hands" for me would imply that something *more* would be added to story to make it worthwhile. Revenge that leads to redemption, or that serves as a cautionary tale. But then it wouldn't be a film like Kill Bill.

Exactly why Kill Bill is so inferior to The Count of Monte Cristo. Not the recent movie though, which was entertaining enough but which missed the whole point when they changed the ending. The original by Alexandre Dumas.

 

[Iron_Chef]

I_C clearly wants an action movie, with a minimum of talking and a maximum of violence. As an action movie, KB2 is not quite as good as KB1: the Bride gets her butt kicked as often as she kicks butt (if not more), you don't have as much mook-slaughtering, and in general the visuals are not quite as bloody. In terms of the more conventional metrics like character development, dialogue, dramatic conflict, and so on, though, it walks all over KB1.

The first one created that expectation that we would be getting a kick-ass action movie. For Tarantino to totally disregard the audience's expectations is criminal. Part 2 is nothing like Part 1, and therein lies the problem. You just can't shift gears like that. I didn't care about any of the characters or the plot because there was nothing there to begin with... Kill Bill 1 was a comic book. Kill Bill 2 piled on all the blah-blah-blah stuff while removing practically all the action. I did not want to see the Bride get her ass kicked/buried alive. It was boring. The first movie led me to expect to see her kicking mass-ass all the way up to the final battle with Bill. Part 2 failed to deliver on every level as a result.

Budd was the least interesting character in the film because he was the most normal (followed by Vernita Green, but she gets points for her in-your face attitude, which Budd lacked). He was not a larger than life comic book villain. He was just some dumb hick with no personality. He ate up way too much screen time. Who needs to see him working at that strip club? YAWN! It was meaningless. Just have the Bride fight him, kill him and move on.

The Bride losing to Budd was anticlimactic and unbelievable after all her spectacular efforts against the other Deadly Vipers. The buried alive scene elicited yawns instead of suspense. I grew more and more irritated with each shovelful of dirt hitting the coffin; the theater's speakers were too loud, the screen was black and it was excruciatingly slow and boring. The evil midget gravedigger was cool, though. Midgets make everything better.

The wedding scene never paid off with the action scene we were led to believe was coming. Who needs it? YAWN. Could have been cut out or down.

Elle should have had a giant fight scene every bit as beautiful and bloodthirsty as O-Ren Ishii had. Instead, we get five minutes alone with her in a cramped trailer. Woo-hoo. Some epic battle there.

Bill should have had a big bad battle too (after she fights through Elle and his mooks). Not the wimped-out "family man" nonsense we ended up with. If I wanted that junk, I'd watch Oprah. Carradine put in a great performance, but it was not enough to save the sinking ship Kill Bill 2 was.

The movie ruined my entire day. I'm not being a troll. I'm telling you how the movie made me feel. I came away from it angry, bored, drained of energy and ripped-off. I couldn't summon up the energy to even play D&D afterward. We were lucky to even get a game of Scrabble in, we all felt so drained and let down.

I honestly cannot see how anyone enjoyed Part 2 after watching Part 1. I really can't.

 

[hong]

The first one created that expectation that we would be getting a kick-ass action movie. yadda yadda worst action movie evar yadda yadda

Heard it all before, d00d.

 

[kingpaul]

Exactly why Kill Bill is so inferior to The Count of Monte Cristo. Not the recent movie though, which was entertaining enough but which missed the whole point when they changed the ending. The original by Alexandre Dumas.

Ah yes, that was a good revenge story. 2 or 3 summers ago, I finally borrowed that book to read it...I was quite impressed.

 

[Mort]

I gave it a "3" only because of David Carradine (great comeback) and the sleazy Mexican whorehouse scene; otherwise, it was a "1". The first hour of this movie put me to sleep. The fight scenes sucked and the ending was anticlimactic. There was no point showing the endless B&W wedding crap if we didn't get to see the massacre. There was no point showing all her kung-fu instruction with Pai Mei as she hardly used any kung-fu in the movie. Budd was a stupid hick and his character added nothing to the movie except padding---especially felt cheated when Elle kills him instead of The Bride (and with a snake, not a sword fight). The Bride/Elle Driver fight in Budd's trailer was lame: too short, too cramped. Nice finish (squish!), but that's it.

This movie felt like a complete rip-off after the first Kill Bill, which I enjoyed a lot. Part 2 needed to have at least 30 minutes slashed out of it. As is, it's boring, pretentious trash. Honestly, my friends and I were so pissed off after watching this garbage that we were too upset to even play D&D! We ended up playing Scrabble instead. I will never watch Part 2 again, not even for free.

I honestly have no idea what anyone who liked this movie was thinking. This movie would barely be acceptable entertainment even as a stand-alone picture with no Kill Bill Vol. 1. If Part 2 came out first, it would have been a box office bomb. They should have just cut the hell out of Part 2 and added it to Part 1, not ripped me off with a bait and switch (first part all action, second part all talking heads).

Interesting, I liked the movie for the exact same reasons you hated it. I liked Vol.1 but was expecting Vol. 2 to be more of the same and therefore stagnant. I really liked that Vol. 2 was more of a character study, with more exposition and explanation, because that set it apart, and justified another 2 hours for me.

My one gripe was that some of the dialogue seemed to be coming straight from Tarantino and not the characters. The biggest example being the superman analogy from Bill. While it was a neat analogy, it just didn’t seem to fit “Bill” the character. It seemed like Tarantino wanted to say something and shoehorned it in.

 

[barsoomcore]

she chooses the exact same course of action as when she began her bloody rampage. Murder. And not in self defense as she ran for his sword before she realized he was armed.

I'm not saying she was a GOOD person at the end of the story. I'm just saying she changed.

I think her character did go through a transformation within the context of the story as a whole, but we disagree on where it occurred and how long it lasted. I believe she changed when she learned she was pregnant, (snip) and that Beatrix lived until the Wedding Chapel Massacre, where she was killed with the rest of the party.

See, we disagree fundamentally. Beatrix did NOT change prior to the massacre -- that's the WHOLE POINT of the movie. She was lying to herself prior to the massacre. Sure, she'd convinced herself that she'd changed, but she'd been unwilling to do what was necessary in order to actually transform her life.

She'd been afraid to confront Bill, to face the real consequences of her life of murder and violence, and it caught up with her in a bad way and destroyed what she THOUGHT she'd been willing to accept. In the process, she lost that which had triggered her desire for change in the first place -- her child.

It's only through the course of the story that she acquires the courage and the compassion to take herself into the darkest corners of herself, to confront that which ultimately defines her, and destroy it.

The Bride who emerged was vengeful, murderous, and would never go back to being the person who let the first assassin go. Nope, even if it meant killing a man she once loved and deeply trusted. Even after realizing that her daughter hadn't really been lost, or even significantly damaged. Because at this point in the story, after so many killings, she's so far into her routine she's basically on autopilot.

You're just hand-waving the actual evidence in the movie, the fact that her confrontation with Bill is DRASTICALLY different from her confrontation with O-Ren, that her behaviour is different and that the presentation of her behaviour is different -- all of which indicates that we are meant to see this action as DIFFERENT from the former one. That we are meant to see her in a different light, as a different person.

If you want to say, "Things look different, but I know they haven't changed," go ahead. I'll take the story as it is and assume that when something is presented in a different manner, it's because things have CHANGED.

I'm not saying its odd for someone to be pissed when someone royally screws them over in such a morbid fashion, but it isn't exactly commendable behavior, and in Beatrix's case, no different at the end than when she started.

But it IS different. The fact that she DOESN'T go crazy until somebody wrongs her is completely different than at the beginning of the film -- where she slaughters a host of people who haven't done anything to her.

Look at the progression of the "Crazy Bride Scene":

1. Hearing Sofie's cell phone ring (it's not even somebody who did anything to her, just a reminder of what happened)
2. Confronting Vernita Green face-to-face
3. After Budd has buried her alive
4. ...nothing

You don't see a transformation there, well, I can't force you to. It seems clear to me.

The whole "in the right hands" for me would imply that something *more* would be added to story to make it worthwhile. Revenge that leads to redemption, or that serves as a cautionary tale.

Okay, so you wish that this film expressed a moral stance that you agree with -- that is, that revenge is bad in and of itself. I agree that this film does not show us that -- or at least, if doesn't show us that in an unproblematic manner. But I suggest again that this film is not primarily about revenge. It's about self-transformation and the pain and heartbreak that involves. It's about the fact that if you really truly want a new life, you'd better be prepared to sacrifice what you always thought defined you. You'd better be prepared to destroy what you love most.

You're going to meet the Buddha on the road. Kill him.

This is probably me reading *way* to much into things but something that made me curious after watching KB1 on DVD again. During the exchange between Beatrix and O-Ren when they say, "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids...." does anyone think that was Quentin hinting at the Bride's name? Or possibly where he got the idea for her name?

Rabbit Trix. Beatrix. Kids. Kiddo.

My wife had exactly the same thought.

It's interesting to note that O-Ren and the Bride appear to have no animosity -- in contrast to Vernita Green, who's pretty hostile ("I shoulda been mutha-f***ing Black Mamba"), Budd and his sympathetic savagery ("That woman deserves her revenge"), and Elle's untempered venom ("Oh, you don't owe her s***!"). I don't think it's a coincidence. Note also that O-Ren gets a long backstory to make us sympathetic to her -- I think the Bride likes O-Ren (or did, before... you know). It seems like they might have been friends at one point.

It's exactly this sort of tantalizing detail, these unspoken connections between characters that are NOT spelled out for the audience, that makes me love this film. It lets me use my imagination to fill out the story. It doesn't try to explain everything. Good stuff.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Man, I am going to go see it again, armed with Barsoomcore's insights (though frankly I already gave it a 10).

 

[Pants]

3. After Budd has buried her alive
[/b]

Hm, I always thought that the 'crazy bride music' started up because she saw Elle.

 

[Kai Lord]

I gave KB2 a "10" in the poll, because, if you are familiar with the conventions of the genre, this movie is nearly the perfect distillation of them, with liberal amounts of modern "quality filmmaking" added to the mix...I think that might be why Kai Lord didn't "get" Kill Bill 2. No perspective.

See, that's the thing that you obviously don't understand. I know the genre. I understand the genre. I "get" the genre. I just don't particularly care for the genre. A "nearly perfection distillation" of a flawed concept will never, ever compare to a nearly perfect distillation of a worthy concept.

When Quentin Tarantino is not at his most foul, his movies can be a lot of fun. The references are often fun and the dialogue can be a real kick. And unlike many directors who choose stories closer to my own particular tastes, Tarantino is *incredibly* unpredictable in his storytelling. You never totally know who's going to die or who's going to live happily ever after, and since his films often loop back in on themselves, you never know exactly when you're going to see the resolution to a particular storyline.

There are times when I find that style of filmmaking very refreshing, and a part of me is waiting for him to do as Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson did; leave the foul juvenile crap behind him and tell a story worth telling like Spider-Man or LOTR. But alas, unlike Sam and Peter he simply hasn't outgrown it. A pity. And he'll never get a 10/10 until he does.

 

[Kai Lord]

See, we disagree fundamentally.

Yep.

Beatrix did NOT change prior to the massacre -- that's the WHOLE POINT of the movie.

And as you know I find that totally wrong. I think you are the one who is hand-waving away the actual evidence of the movie (and the commentary of QT himself), in all caps no less. It was spelled out quite clearly that her character made almost a 180 degree transition when she discovered she was pregnant. It would have been interesting if they had maintained the "Being a mommy = not being a murderer" angle, and had her change back when she discovered that her daughter was alive at the end of the second movie.

I think that would have been very interesting. Then Quentin would have been left with two possibilities. Have her end up *not* killing Bill (talk about a twist) or kill him but instead out of revenge doing it out of self defense. The latter would have been *extremely* cliched and would have called for an extremely skilled execution (no pun intended) to pull off and I think best left avoided.

The very best ending that was probably just beyond QT's ability to manage would have been to have had Beatrix not kill Bill, but somehow through her redemption cause Bill to change too. So she doesn't murder him, but kills that aspect of his identity. The title of the movie is played out and the story transcends all the junk that inspired it.

But as it was QT took the easy way out and didn't deviate whatsoever from the old movies he sought to emulate save for an occassional out of character reference to comic books.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas took everything they loved about old adventure serials and made them better in Raiders of the Lost Ark. George Lucas took everything he loved about Akira Kurosawa films and Flash Gordon and made it better in Star Wars (though arguably if you're a big Kurosawa fan.) Tarantino took everything he loved about revenge exploitation flicks and made it...prettier and with snappier music in Kill Bill. Eh. I admit I enjoyed most of the second Volume at a matinee showing, but he certainly didn't transcend the source material in the manner of other, truly great films.