A satisfying conclusion to the epic

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2004)

Tarantino makes his return to the talky action movie genre with the second part in his Kill Bill epic. The first, naturally titled Kill Bill Volume 1, followed the Bride, a former assassin played by Uma Thurman, as she exacted bloody revenge on her former colleagues. All we learn in the first movie is that on her wedding day, while pregnant, Bill, the Bride's boss, and his gang of DiVAS (Deadly Viper Assassination Squad) ambushed the wedding and massacred everyone. They presumed to have killed the Bride, but they failed and instead left her in a coma for four years. After waking up and teaching her muscles to move again, she begins her rampage to kill all those who wronged her. The first movie concludes with the Bride killing the two bottom-tier assassins in the squad along with sixty-something bodyguards. At the end of Volume 1, we learn that he baby survived and, unbeknownst to her, was taken in by Bill and raised as his daughter. We didn't know who any of the characters were, why they wanted to kill the Bride, or really anything at all about Bill, the charismatic leader of the gang. Volume 1 was a hyper-kinetic action movie that only really took pause once, to explain how the Bride got her samurai sword. It was a great film, but felt pretty superficial compared to any of Tarantino's others, in that one of his trademarks is the intimacy the audience feels with the characters. The two volumes were supposed to come out as one movie, but as shooting went on, Tarantino and Miramax realized they were gonna have a four hour action movie on their hands, and so they decided to cut it into two more manageable chunks. After watching Volume 2, it's hard to believe that Kill Bill was ever supposed to be anything but.
If Volume 1 was supposed to just introduce us to the story and then watch the characters kill each other, Volume 2 explains all the whys. Volume 1 was all action; Volume 2 is all talking. This isn't meant to be a bad thing, however. By the end of Volume 1, we wanted to know why we saw what we just saw. In Volume 2, Tarantino explains it to us. This serves to make us more connected with the characters. We really care who lives and who dies. And, the greatest thing about Volume 2 is by the end, even though we know what a heartless, murdering ba****d Bill is, we kinda like him. We don't even like him in that villain-loving way, where we want to see him get his comeuppance. We honestly like him and kinda wanna see him and the Bride (later revealed to be named Beatrix Kiddo) end up to raising their daughter together. Obviously, as you can probably tell by the title, this doesn't happen. No spoiler warning necessary there.
This is quite a feat for Tarantino to pull off, given everything that we've seen before the end and knowing full well Bill and his cronies did everything to kill the Bride in several heinous ways. This is what makes Kill Bill Volume 2 a fantastic movie. By making us wait to have our questions answered, our sympathies change and change again throughout the story. Yes, it's a talky movie, as every Tarantino movie up until Volume 1 was, but the dialogue is largely interesting and only serves to give every character some form of dimension. Don't go into it expecting more of the same ultraviolence and gore as we saw in the first one, but rather with the attitude of trying to find out why all the ultraviolence and gore was necessary.
My ratings (out of ****):
Volume 1 Writing *** Acting **** Direction ***1/2 Action **** Overall ***1/2 Volume 2 Writing **** Acting **** Direction **** Action ***1/2 Overall **** Entire epic Overall ****