mirror of our time

Rating: 1/10 (23 June 2004)

A mirror of our time: no depth, no character development, weak script and self-complacency. Nothing more than a colorful video game with redundant action scenes: what's the use of the 88 fight if we already know Uma will kill them all? What's the use (and the sense) of all that limbs chopped (once we see one or two, that's enough I think)? Kill Bill is the essence of baroque cinema, what I call add-ism: add action, add color, add blood, add every possible camera angle, add anything you may like, this way you'll rest assured you've hit the target. People, today, don't want to think, they just want to watch action movies with a dumb expression on their face. It's not important the quality of what you see, what counts is to fill the frame with every possible object, movement or detail in a "horror vacui" triumph. Quentin has reached a point where he can shoot what he wants, edit the way he wants and put the music he wants that, one way or another, critics and people would find praise and new adjectives to glorify his (lost) talent. Yes, very good cinematography, but what a shallow and presumptuous movie! Think about it for a moment: consider the final scene with Uma (bad feet) and Lucy katana-fighting. "Don't let me be misunderstood" is the music. But, what would have been changed if we had put another song? Nothing. If Quentin would have chosen a Mariah Carey song (or White Christmas), people would have enjoyed it too. There is too much of everything in this movie (not to mention the stereotyped manga sequence) that if you add something, or move something in another place the final results would be exactly the same. A very huge cauldron where everybody can add something. You recognize a masterpiece when you feel that in an artwork nothing need to be added and nothing need to be changed in any way; it's a perfect accomplishment. Here, Quentin, I'm sorry because I loved all your three previous films, but you have lost your perfection in favor of anarchy and confusion. Nothing more than a mirror of our times, new baroque where people don't want to think but just want to be entertained, no matter how, but matters how much.