Not nearly as clever or entertaining as Vol. 1, but still good

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2014)

*LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD* Kill Bill Vol. 2 can either be regarded as ingenious for the way it does the opposite of the viewer's expectations or it can be considered mediocre-bad because it doesn't deliver anything as satisfying as the first film.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 is interesting in the fact that it has only ONE true action sequence, where as the rest of the movie is literally either flashbacks or dialogue. Yes. It is one of THOSE movies. This is where this movie's biggest problems start to show and it becomes obvious that these movies were meant to be shown as one movie and not to. Vol. 2, as a standalone film, is pretty boring and uninteresting because it is filled with flashbacks and subplots. It is really peculiar how many mini subplots are fit into this movie that really take away from what the main appeal of the first movie was. While the first movie dedicated 30 minutes or so into one action sequence (and about 10-15 minutes building up to it) this movie is mostly dialogue with one action sequence that lasts only a couple of minutes. Now this could work if the first movie wasn't a fast-paced martial arts movie, but it was... so you have Vol. 1 which is cheesy yet action-packed and then you have Vol. 2 which is mostly dialogue. Does this work?
What most people will say is that this works because you usually want a more serious tone for a climax and you want to dive more into your character and their back-story before you finish the movie. However, with this movie, that doesn't work because of a couple of reasons, but mostly one: 1) The dialogue isn't interesting 2) Bill isn't an interesting Villain. In the first movie we were lead to believe that Bill was going to be this intimidating villain with a lot of presence, but once we actually see him he starts to come off as a genuinely nice guy who is also a murderer. While this concept could work, the issue is that he still needs to have a presence on screen. Bill doesn't. There is nothing about him that is either intimidating, threatening, interesting, or overly unique. He is just plain. Him being plain may have been what Tarantino was going for, but it makes someone we do not care about. Do I care about Bill if he dies? No. Do I care if Bill is sad? No. Do I care if Bill is happy? No. So why should I care about him as a villain if he isn't interesting?
This mixed with very mediocre dialogue makes the final 30 minutes of the movie obnoxious. I loved Pulp Fiction and I am all for complex dialogue exchanges, but this finale simply doesn't give any interesting dialogue. A climax where rivals talk can work only if what they are saying is genuinely interesting or clever. Here, it isn't. So basically while the last 30 minutes of the last movie is all action, the last 30 minutes of this movie has an uninteresting villain who talks about uninteresting things for 30 minutes. Sounds like fun? It isn't.
I respect this movie for what it was trying to do, but I don't think it pulled it off well... at all. I think instead of the ending being a clever twist, it was more of a slap in the face. The fact that the movie tries to say that The Bride and someone old enough to be her father were in love is not only slightly unsettling, but it kind messes up the entire motivation of the story. If they really were in love and she did run away then she would've had to expect something. It kind of takes away the entire significance of her being... A BRIDE. The point was that she lost so much on her wedding rehearsal and that she is getting revenge for that. But when you realize she didn't really love the groom and didn't really care for any of the people that were murdered... it kind of breaks the entire motivation of the series. Basically, she SHOULD'VE known this was going to happen because in this movie it almost seems logical that her wedding rehearsal was logical. She literally runs away from her lover and gets married to some dude almost immediately (whom she doesn't really care for) and yet she doesn't expect her lover to get mad?
Lastly, the camera work in this movie is half that of the first movie. The first movie had beautiful cinematography, but this movie just feels standard. There are no open-top-set-shots, no crazy foot shots, and nothing much of note as far as camera work goes. Pretty standard.
All in all, Kill Bill Vol. 2 is good, but it isn't incredibly good. It takes away a lot of the charm of the first movie and replaces it with very uninteresting dialogue.