Visually Slick but Brain Dead

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2004)

It's a Quentin Tarantino movie, so I expected the usual over the top violence. It's also a ninja movie, so physics and reality go right out the window as expected. Yes, skinny Uma Thurman apparently can take on a room of 50 ninjas. Yes, an 11 year old Japanese girl can in fact revenge kill a middle aged man. Yes, rail thin Uma can in fact lift a 150 lb Japanese man over her head on her sword. That's the kind of movie this is and apparently people who love Asian movies really dig this stuff.
There's also the usual dregs of society that Tarantino likes to explore for some reason. While Uma is in a coma, apparently her male nurse had sex with her, and also lets his friend take a turn on her for cash. Fine, if Tarantino wants to drag up this kind of perversion in his films I guess that's his prerogative.
However, she is in a coma for 4 years. Having just woke up (then for some reason pretending to be asleep when she hears her nurse) she swiftly kills the 300 lb friend who is attempting to rape her. Then when the 260 lb nurse comes in later she kills him by slamming his head in a door jamb repeatedly. Apparently rail thin Uma can take him on, even though she was in a coma for FOUR FREAKING YEARS. And when the beating begins, apparently he just decides to lay there rather than, like, defend himself or crawl away.

Anyway, it's great Hollywood Marxist stuff (lots of groin slicing off, emasculation and that kind of thing). So if you can suspend rational logic, and your belief in physics, and you don't mind a plot that is pretty weak, and you like pretty pictures, then you might like this film.