What's wrong with "Kill Bill"

Rating: 6/10 (17 February 2008)

I actually enjoyed many aspects of the film, but it fails for the following reasons:
*******WARNING*****SPOILERS******
-While I think Lucy Liu is a pretty good actress (I loved her on "Ally McBeal") I think she is totally miscast in this role. At no time did I believe she was an assassin, and I never felt she was a threat to Uma Thurman's character. This role cried out for someone like Michelle Yeoh, an actress with a history of martial arts roles. Vivica Fox and Daryl Hannah both conveyed the necessary physicality and menace, but Lucy looked small and weak in the final battle vs "The Bride"
-The cartoonish squirting blood and unrealistic mayhem in the Crazy 88 fight. I know, it was meant to be cartoonish and unrealistic, but there has to be a certain amount of believability for an audience to buy into a movie, and this scene, with Uma mowing down henchman after henchman, just blew all credibility for the film.
-Filming out of chronological order. I know it has become a Tarantino trademark, and it works brilliantly in "Reservior Dog" and "Pulp Fiction", but here it's just confusing. Why not just present the saga of "The Bride" as it happened? The plot has enough drama without playing with the time line, which brings me to my fourth point . . .
-Style over substance. Tarantino is one of those directors who feels the need to constantly remind the audience, "Hey, look over here, I'm directing this movie!" There's enough camera movement and fast edits in this film to give you motion sickness. It's like a 2 hour music video. A well told story with some cinematic style is one thing - In "Kill Bill" the style over-whelms the story.