KILL BILL 1 - such a bore.

Rating: 3/10 (17 March 2011)

KILL BILL 1 is very boring, not up to the usual Tarantino standards. Characterisation one dimensional, especially giving me no reason to care whether the Uma Thurman character lives or dies. Lets face it, she was a member of criminal assassin organisation, so once this was revealed all sympathy for her went clean out the window. Over 50% of the movie is endless fight action which is very tedious. I mean once you've seen a limb or head being hacked off, you've seen them all. This is the prime content of the movie. No story. No characters. No interesting or amusing dialogue. What a yawn. And what a rip-off for movie-goers to spread such thin content over several films!!! Thank god I never paid cinema prices to watch KILL BILL 1 (bought secondhand DVDs in an Oxfam charity shop for a couple of quid), I would have felt cheated to come to the end of the movie and find it hasn't finished. The story Tarantino came up with could easily be told in one film. The material is simply not strong enough to stretch over two or three films. I wasn't convinced Uma Thurman was the best woman for the part. Her performance was mediocre. It is such a drag when stars depend entirely on their looks to give flesh to a role. The positive side to the movie is the cinematography, the staging and the soundtrack, which are all excellent. I appreciated the innovation of using anime cartoon for telling some of the back story, which showed Tarantino's genius for creative originality. I also liked the cross references between Samurai and Western, particularly Spaghetti movies, using Ennio Morricone type music. I especially loved the use of the scary theme tune from the Hailey Mills and Hywell Bennett 1970s psycho chiller "Twisted Nerve", which I immediately recognised.
Overall, if I had not bought KILL BILL, one and two as a job lot, I wouldn't be motivated to watch episode two of KB, after watching episode 1. I simply wouldn't care enough as to what happens next. But since I already have Kill Bill 2 in my possession, I might as well watch it, even if the only pleasure I get from it is hopefully more interesting cinematography, and entertaining music soundtrack.