What did i do to deserve this?

Rating: 1/10 (8 April 2005)

The movie-making career of Quentin Tarantino takes a turn for the worse following this pointless film. With successes like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction under his belt it's a wonder he didn't choose to retire a respected genius rather than filling our lives with this emptiness called Vol. 2. (It was actually called Vol. 2) Maybe it should be called Void 2 as when you try telling someone what this film was about you find yourself wondering more about what important knowledge was pushed aside in your brain for this inflated garbage to fill. OK enough of the initial insults (we'll come back to those) and on to the main points about why this is really bad. Firstly the story is a woman who kills people in revenge for her friend's own killings. There is nothing more about it to note and to be honest a donkey could understand what's happening. Usually these films get by on the sheer amount of violence, gore and special effects (eye candy). This however appeared to be an attempt at making a proper film. He failed. The violence was not there, but to replace it was a mere collection of flash-backs, undeveloped characters and uninventive killings diluted by a slow script where it seemed to take an age for a sentence to be completed. Maybe they made it through two-thirds of the script in the first one and had to tell the cast to talk slower or they wouldn't have a 'Vol.2'. The clip-show lasted two and a half hours and after about 90 minutes I was looking to my watch hoping for it to end soon (only to be bitterly disappointed). By the time 'Bill' started giving his superman speech I couldn't bear to listen because to be honest I really didn't care about Tarantino's comic-book revelations. In fact I'd heard that speech before somewhere like a lot of this film. One bit that had me amused was the part with the Chinese 'master' in martial arts who instructed whatever the main character was called (it just didn't seem important enough to know this in the grand story-line). Once again his character was a copy from another film but that didn't matter much as the OTT sword-fighting skills and silly beard stroking were enough even to make me laugh. It was a mere interlude before the exhausting second half. It drew to a close with a ridiculous fighting move that requires five steps for its death-inducing effect to kick in. I almost laughed at this but felt inclined to spare anyone caught up in this 'emotional moment'. The attempt to round up the film with an emotional ending was unbearable to watch and I didn't feel for her at all or bother to waste the energy to smile. The acting wasn't bad, which is some consolation for one of the worst and over-rated movies in recent times. To slate this film was to reboot my brain.