Kill Bill: Vol. 2
So now that I've actually seen the movie I can give you all my edited review. I must say that I was (accidentically) close on some things in my earlier review, but I must agree with Mr. Dickinson, the actual movie was better than my version. So on to the real review...
It does start a bit weird with the whole car driving scene that was in the teasers, but I can excuse that as a Tarantino-ism. I'm not gonna go through the plot (as I did earlier) but it's rather well writen. I was pleased to see that there wasn't any overly corny or out of place dialogue that can plague Tarantino's work. It didn't have anything as stupid as the sword spanking in the first film (I'm sure some of you thought that was funny, but I just found it to be out of place and stupid). As a ironic twist Vol. 2 serves as both a sequel and pre-quel all in the same movie. While about half the film focuses on the hunt for Budd, Elle, and Bill, the other half is spent exploring the reason for the wedding/killing and some other back story to Uma's character. It was all well done too and flowed nicely. It all had a reason to it, just not random jumping around. Fans of the action packed Vol. 1 may be a bit disappointed though. This film was more of a dramic action. It didn't have any gigantic clash like at the end of Vol. 1. Insted it was a lot more divided up with shorter action sequences. Don't get me wrong though, the fights were great. In fact I enjoyed them more than in the first. The smaller one-on-one battles seemed much more fluid and smooth. I've never been a big fan of massive fights though (I thought Fellowship was the best mainly because of the more intimate action). And the lack of epic action sequences succeeded because there were solid performances all around. As Dan put it "there wasn't any bad acting" (a.k.a. Tarantino left himself out of this one). The film stylings were once again well done too. Much as Vol. 1 paid homage to Japanese anime and old time TV series, Vol. 2 manages to mimic the classically cheesy Chinese action films. Tarantino is dead on right down to the camera angles, zoom-ins, and beard-stroking. I must also note that the locals for the story were more varied than what I guessed in my earlier review. It passed from desert land to China to Latin America (a good variety not used in the first). And while there weren't any foot-cams, or extended single camera action sequences, the camera work still impressed me enough.
While the first film was Tarantino doing an all out action film (and doing it really well), this one was more of Tarantino doing a more story driven action film, which is a very rare and difficult thing to do, but he did it well. But do these really count as a seperate movie from Vol. 1? Not really. I wouldn't reccommend that you see this movie without having seen the first one first. You'll probably get lost and confused. But it's hard to say it's just one movie, especially with a total running time of about 4 hours. I'd have to categorize the two films as more of a giant, big screen, mini-series. At the same time though it is the kind of thing that you could just spend an afternoon watching straight through (and I'm sure I will at some point). In my opinion these 2 movies are collectively Tarantino's best work to date. I'd even be tempted to say that they are seperately his best 2 films (depending on how I feel about Pulp Fiction that day).
Finally, to clear some things up, I'm not praising the movies and Tarantino cause I think he's some genious God-like filmmaker. I'm not one of those fanboys with my head halfway up his ass. In fact I don't really like him that much. I think he's cocky and overparised. And while I loved Pulp Fiction, and respected Resevoir Dogs, I thought Jackie Brown was crap. And at times he just seems to fill his writing with obsessive amounts of cursing to make up for his lack of writing skill. However you have to like a man who had the gull to release 6 versions of Resevior Dogs on DVD (You HAVE to collect all the different packagings!). And I do appreciate his depication of violence, which ranges from ultra-gory (i.e. realistic) to cartoonish.
So anyway, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is a great movie, but see the first one beforehand (within the week if possible to refresh your memory).
RATING: Worth Full Price Ticket (or Multiple Cheap Tickets), Worth Purchase.