..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

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When last we encountered the Bride (Uma Thurman) she had risen from a four year coma vowing vengeance on her former cohorts in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad that had murdered her wedding party and left her for dead. In Kill Bill Vol. 1 she dispatched three of the killers, leaving three more for the continuation served up by writer-director Quentin Tarantino in Vol. 2.

Certainly an homage to sprightlier genre fare from Asia and Europe, the Kill Bill movies together and separately are an indulgence in style over content and it was conspicuous in the first outing how little its author had to contribute that was novel. It's only markedly better in the finale with characters allowed to spout out at length with the characteristic braggadocio Tarantino brought to such past efforts as Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. But it is only a marginal improvement and underlines the filmmakers almost crippling reliance on movies from an impressionable and endless youth. Regrettably many of these touchstones are unworthy of recycling or verge on parody that cannot be, well, parodied.

The film begins with a more vivid retelling of the wedding party massacre. For the first time we actually get to see the title Bill (David Carradine) and watch as he interacts with the Bride and her beau. He radiates menace more than charm or, at the very least, we project that balance for very good reason.

The action then segues to where the last film left off. Next on the hit list is Bud (Michael Madsen), Bill's now dissolute and despondent brother who's living in a trailer park and eking out an existence as a bouncer at a strip bar. For no apparent reason his instincts are keen enough to get the upper hand on his stalker and he exacts a cruel punishment by burying the barely breathing Bride alive in a grave marked Paula Schultz (a nod to the hopeless Elke Sommer Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz of 1968).

Whereas the first outing was grounded in set pieces, the conclusion dispatches its villains with alacrity and a modicum of irony. It and a Black Momba have a bite sorely missing from Vol. 1 but the result is still akin to the half filled glass and it's only in tandem that the notion of a full picture emerges. Though I remain skeptical, it's plausible that taken together and rigorously edited that the two installments might generate an entertaining and energetic action saga with colorful diversions into character and more clearly defined dramatic tensions and rationales.

However, as presently constituted each film is a series of moments and intense emotions woefully unsubstantiated by story. There are delights to be found in the hysterical pitch Darryl Hannah provides her aptly named villain Elle Driver (apply the British pronunciation) and Carradine certainly suggests a humanity pulsating beneath a petty and malevolent surface. There's also a mesmerizing performance by Michael Parks as a Mexican gangster that's a reminder of Tarantino's shrewd deployment of actors with careers that imploded.

But mostly Kill Bill is grandstanding with high gloss sheen and overwrought theatrics. He turns up the soundtrack volume to the point of drowning out the dialogue track and it's only the considerable skill of cinematographer Robert Richardson that keeps the look of the picture artful and not a cheesy imitation of the martial arts films and spaghetti westerns the filmmaker so obviously admires. Ultimately the movie is obvious, and despite its heightened pace slows to a ponderous and precious rhythm that underlines filigree material and a dime store comic book sensibility.

- Leonard Klady

Release Date: April 16, 2004
Rated: R

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Starring: Uma Thurman,
David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba

Produced by: Quentin Tarantino, Lawrence Bender,
E. Bennett Walsh


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Distributor: Miramax

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Review Date: April 18, 2004