"Okay"

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2004)

I neither liked Vol. 1 as much as some fans did or hated it as much as others. I thought it was "okay" -- basically an action/revenge cartoon with a Tarantinoesque gloss. Isolated parts, particularly the anime sequence and the wonderful House of Blue Leaves episode, were exciting filmmaking by any standard, but taken as a *whole* the movie seemed very lightweight and self-indulgent, more a case of Tarantino stylistically riffing on genres and characters he likes than an actual movie about real people doing real things.
That probably sounds harsher than it really is: I like action/revenge cartoons, and I enjoyed Vol. 1. But I don't understand those who see all sorts of depth in the movie. The movie this most reminded me of was FROM DUSK TIL DAWN.
Vol. 2 has, I think, been overrated by a lot of critics who hated Vol. 1 and were looking for more traditional Tarantinoesque pleasures. Again, I think this is "okay", not great, not awful. More talky and less action-oriented than 1, it follows Uma on her quest. This time out she goes after Madsen, Darryl Hannah, and of course Bill himself.
Madsen's amazing, the best performance in the movie and the only one who felt actually "real" to me. Hannah is very good, too. There's a flashback sequence with Gordon Liu as Pei Mei that harkens back to old school Seventies kung fu movies that's fun, especially for fans of those kind of movies. There's some clever casting in small roles, too --I'll just mention Bo Svenson in a nice bit as a country preacher.
Some people like Uma in this -- I thought she did the best with a limited role, take that for what it's worth. Carradine has his moments, but he's basically playing David Carradine: the movie works best if you buy him as a Presence. I've never been a big fan of his and remained unmoved by his performance.
Tarantino complicates Uma's quest here and it's interesting -- I just never really cared about Uma and Carradine's relationship, so the complication remained pretty intellectual to me (ie, I understood it but just didn't really care about it, either). The dialog is entertaining, and there's plenty of homages here, especially to Spaghetti Westerns.

Taken as a pair KILL BILL is good but lightweight, worth seeing but destined to be overrated. I am of the school that JACKIE BROWN is Tarantino's best movie, and the most interesting direction for him to go, but I like him a great deal and will definitely see his next movie, whenever it is.