Vastly over-rated...

Rating: 2/10 (3 May 2005)

*This review contains some minor spoilers*
I only just saw this film after several years of hearing and seeing people rave about it.
Seriously...were they watching the same movie I just saw? When Tarantino did his "start in the middle, jump to the start, then skip to the end" trick in "Pulp Fiction", it was refreshing. It was new. It was different. In a film with a simple plot like PF, it worked.
In "Kill Bill", the same technique is just downright annoying. I found myself thinking "Oh...right. If it worked once, it must work every time, right?" So far, Tarantino has a 50% hit rate as far as I'm concerned. PF was terrific. "Jackie Brown" was terrific. "Reservoir Dogs" was a load of guff, and "Kill Bill" has just joined RD.
I am neither queasy, nor disturbed by cinematic violence. But the fight in the restaurant was simply absurd. Someone might like to point out to Quentin that having gallons of blood spray up like a garden hose just looks like...well...a red garden hose spray. It's not graphic. It's not disturbing. It's not even remotely interesting. The entire fight scene in the restaurant would have been mildly interesting if two things had been done: 1) A technical adviser with some medical training to point out to Tarantino that traumatic severing of limbs results in very little bleeding since arteries go into spasm, and...
2) A decent fight choreographer could have been hired. You know...someone who doesn't fall for the tired old cliché of the bad guys attacking the good guy one at a time, while the rest circle around looking threatening.
The only decent fight scene in the movie was the last one between Uma's character and O-ren. THAT was a good fight scene, and focused on the psychological side of kendo-style combat.
Of course, it was marred by the fact that we already knew O-ren lost the battle because her name was shown crossed off the list in the opening five minutes of the film.
It is this last fight scene that allows me to give this film a 2 out of 10.
I don't expect "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero" from Quentin Tarantino.
But when "Mortal Kombat" has better fight choreography - and "Evangelion" has more believable imagery - there's something seriously wrong.