Too Hip For Its Own Good

Rating: 4/10 (17 September 2006)

"Quentin Tarantino's Fourth Film", what an egomaniac. And it shows in this movie, where he's more concerned with showing us how cleverly he understands all the genres he loves to parody than he is with creating anything new and substantial. I'm glad I didn't pay money to see this, having just seen it on TNT.
There are some good parts here and there, like the fight with Vivica Fox. And you can't really hate a movie which lionizes the triumph of the human will over adverse circumstances. And the fight choreography is good, even though overall fight execution is only so-so.
This is why I gave the movie a 4/10 instead of a 2/10. But for the most part this film sports a kind of self-conscious cheesiness I find unbearable and nearly unwatchable. And then there's that whole thing with O-Ren. I just don't find Lucy Liu believable either as a beautiful woman or as a bad-ass martial artist.