VOLUME 2
Back
Now, we see a great filmmaker making a truly great film. The story is finished. The tale of the Bride is spent (for now anyway), and “Kill Bill” is essentially one, long, four-hour film. I can’t think of a better movie to use up four hours of my life watching. This is a celebration of film in general. It’s a token to the directors and pictures of past generations who, too, were experimenting. Like the first, “Vol. 2” has references left and right to the famous Sergio Leone, who clad himself in the riches spawned by “The Man With No Name” trilogy. We faintly hear the strumming of the electric guitar and mandolin, and the playing of muted trumpets. We also see elements of those old kung foo films where the camera would zoom to the close-up of an actor extremely quickly. It’s pretty hilarious.
But this is not a copy of those directors and those films. Q.T. has said countless times that he grew up with and loved the old “spaghetti westerns” and kung foo movies. This is merely Tarantino gathering those past influences, putting them into a blender, and mixing them into one brilliantly transcended action-a-thon.
I can’t say that this is a sequel...because it isn’t. It is just a continuation and a completion to what we’ve been waiting to see. I admit that I kept thinking that the director was moving the film to a place that was not good. A hole if you will. When you go to a place that, it’s unredeemable. But he was always many more steps ahead of me, turning around a corner that I didn’t think we had access to.
The color and exuberance of Tarantino’s other films is still here. He uses his great directing skills to lead this wonderful cast on a journey that is full of lore and almost a classic bravado. It’s just plain fun to watch.
Chapter after chapter unfolds and takes us to another place, with another person that is somehow connected to the story. It’s the small dialogue from both films that put it all together. If you listened carefully, you were being fed clues the entire way. But that is exactly how this director works, and it is undeniably brilliant.
I read that the only reason this was split into two films was because it was simply too long to be one movie. Most audiences won’t tolerate a long, long movie...no matter how awesome or action-packed it is. As for action, the violence is actually quite mild in this one. Especially after the almost sadistic fight scene of “Vol. 1”. I’ve also heard that Tarantino is in talks for a third Volume. But he said, “...it would have to at least fifteen years before I made it.”
“Kill Bill” is one of those films I hate reviewing because there are only good things to say about it. I loved it because although these two films are essentially one, “Vol. 2” is complete by itself. It is basically Quentin Tarantino marking off another type of film he really didn’t have to prove he could make, but he did it anyway. One of the best films of the year, by far. ****