Visually arresting, but lacking in everything beyond.

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2012)

Kill Bill is about a woman seeking revenge against a group of assassins who violently murder everyone at her wedding, which she herself only just manages to survive.
That's it.
Beyond that simple sentence lie no finer nuances or greater subplots in this contextually simplistic yarn. We know next to nothing about 'The Bride' (with her real name beeped out for no apparent reason, because that would be just too much information), her own history, why her wedding party was targeted or who the mysterious 'Bill' is.
Now admittedly this is the opening of a two parter film, but even so, to completely strip away the context in which the Bride carries out her actions leaves the film and its central character cold and devoid of any real emotional attachment. It's a bit like finishing the Fellowship of the Ring with no idea why Frodo and Sam are heading for Mt. Doom, how they began their journey or who they even are - only that they've got a list of enemies they have to dispatch along the way.
At around an hour and 45 minutes, there's certainly no shortage of time in which this could have been achieved (or even the whole affair concluded in full). Instead Tarantino opts for long and drawn-out fighting scenes in which arms, legs and all manner of body parts are chopped off in quick succession. Whilst these scenes are staged with precision and considerable skill, there is no sense of urgency or any question as to what the final outcome will be; we know the Bride will walk away victorious, her 'revenge' partially accomplished, but that isn't enough to carry a film alone.
And so, we descend into a Tarantino-esque swamp of film references and homages, weaving a world which is completely unbelievable, but so self-serious it prevents you from enjoying it as a light-hearted adventure. After the film moves over to Japan, we enter a realm in which an army of crime minions lack guns and are defeated by a single individual, people carry swords openly on planes, and teenagers act as highly trained bodyguards to senior crime bosses. Whilst there's nothing wrong with creating this kind of fictitious universe, it is highly jarring after the environmental realism which characterises the American portion of the movie, and leaves you feeling like Tarantino is simply treating Japan as a semi-mythical fantasy land where he can indulge his love of mindless violence.
But when all the fighting is over, and the film draws to a close with a half-hearted attempt at a cliff-hanger, I felt as if I had travelled nowhere, felt nothing and ultimately seen nothing. The few precious moments in which blood isn't gushing out are spent in pointless and prolonged conversations about nothing, an interlude before the film can get back to more scenes of raw violence. I know this film is based around the theme of revenge, an irrational feeling if there ever was one, but that should be no excuse to create cardboard cut-out characters acting out a movie with no greater plot other than to kill each and every person who stands in your way.