No, no, no, no and no.

Rating: 2/10 (11 July 2005)

Okay, first off, I love Quentin Tarantino. One mention of the man and I light up like a Christmas tree...but I loathed this movie. Maybe it's because I grew up on roughly the same movies as Quentin, knew what to expect when he was busy name-dropping influences and got disappointed when the movie didn't deliver, maybe it's because Yuen Woo Ping's choreography here was way below par for the great man that he is...I don't know.
However, my best bet is that my final decision that Kill Bill 1 was godawful happened after that arm came off and ridiculous comic-book blood flew forth from the wound. I've seen my fair share of limb severances, and that was the weakest. It was all I could do not to roll off the sofa in fits of derisive laughter. Somewhere along the line, somebody forgot to mention how completely unconvincing Kill Bill is. I can suspend my disbelief in Halloween Resurrection and that movie was pretty creaky too but it was a hell of a lot more fun than Kill Bill.
So it's not for lack of effort, or even lack of style that Kill Bill fails. It's just the fact that the moment anyone dies it happens in such a stupid cartoon fashion that you're jolted all the way back to your sofa and you realise you need the toilet, you've got to be at work the next morning and you've been watching this damn thing for an hour and a half. For a movie in which being violent seems to be the entire point(god knows there's damn little substance anywhere else in this first two hour chunk) you'd think they could have got it right.
Take the violence out (which anyone who likes violent movies may as well as they will have seen five times this movie a gazillion times before) and you realise A: Uma Thurman's character is intentionally glacial and wooden, which is all well and good but makes her impossible to really root for, B: There is nigh-on no script or dialogue to speak of in this first part, and C: Most sections don't synch well with each other, giving the movie a 'Look at this! Now look at that!' feel that just hacked me off.
So...I'd like to see Part 2 just to find out how it all plays out, but first I've got to go and get the Ajax and a pan scourer to wash the foul taste of this part out of my mouth. I state again: Tarantino is an amazing director but everyone makes mistakes. This is his first.