Needs A Rewrite To Correct It's Shortcomings

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2014)

Kill Bill Volume 2 is the continuation of The Bride's story in getting her revenge against Bill. I consider Kill Bill as one of Tarantino's weaker films, and Volume 2 is definitely a big reason why it's a letdown.
The film is written by Quentin Tarantino and what he has written here is much more dialogue and story heavy than the first volume. I enjoyed the first volume a lot more because it is much more fun and stylish, this second volume holds back much more of that in service to the story which wasn't all that great to begin with. Normally heading towards the end, a film with this story should be much more intense than the first half but that's not the case. The bulk of the build up of the climax is dull due to the underwhelming dialogue, though the pregnancy test sequence was hilarious. The climax itself would have been a great opportunity for Tarantino to write something spectacular and thrilling, yet it felt like Tarantino couldn't find some sort of vision of it and just wrote something that can be done swiftly. I know Tarantino can write because he has proved it with great dialogue-driven films like Pulp Fiction and Death Proof or mainstream action driven films like Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Kill Bill combines both aspects together and proved to be ineffective. The film's story isn't all bad with an interesting burial segment and a throwback to the old Kung-Fu Chinese films that had me smiling throughout.
Tarantino directs this film with a much more slower pace, in order to flesh out the story and gain more insight to it's characters. This film at times feels too safe for me, with moments that have characters just talking, which I don't mind if the dialogue was written better, leaving me feeling underwhelmed. Kill Bill as a whole's best moments are the segments that are over the top, violent and experimental. These experimental moments include the Pai Mei chapter, feeling like it was from a 1980's cheesy Kung Fu film. If Tarantino treated this half of the film like the first half then Kill Bill as a whole would have been an instant favorite of mine.
Robert Richardson comes back as the director of photography for this film and this time the scenes don't look as hyper stylised and overly saturated as the first volume. I do admire the fact that this film doesn't look the same the entire run of the film, with moments in black and white, changing the aspect ratio of the film, and using split screen to show two things at once. The Pai Mei sequence was shot in such a way that is similar to the old Asian Kung Fu films, with grainy photography and lacking in vibrancy in it's color. Though there are great moments in this volume's photography, I much prefer the style that was applied for the first volume.
RZA didn't come back to do the score for this film, which is odd as I liked what he did for the first volume. Instead Robert Rodriguez is credited for the music of the film, I am sure that he did the final song but I am not aware of any other moments in where he might have contributed. The film's music still follows that inspiration of Ennio Morricone, with some tracks actually written from him, and gives the film this Western feel to it. There are also moments where it uses Asian inspired music which works well with the tone of the film. The sound effects of this film is hilarious as they use the cheesy effects that are found on the films that this was inspired by. I wish that this film does retain that upbeat and fun soundtrack that fueled the first volume, but I guess that would be inappropriate judging by the events that unfolds during this film.
Uma Thurman as The Bride is still great but this time it seems the film demands more from her and she does a great job. She may seem less bad-ass here because vulnerabilities arise and there are times where she is outmatched by her opponent which we didn't see a lot from the first volume. I felt that Bill was a little dull because of the way Tarantino has written him, but David Carradine does the most he can with the character. Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen as Elle and Budd were fun to watch as they play characters that are classic Tarantino; fun, hilarious, and unpredictable. I wish Madsen were in much more entertaining films because he is a wonderful actor to watch. Gordon Liu as Pai Mei was definitely hilarious and written with such absurdity that anything that comes out his mouth is pure comedic gold or bad-ass.
Kill Bill Volume 2 is a bit of a disappointment in comparison to the first volume and the other films in the director's catalogue. If the film was fun like the first one, or at least written better then I would have liked this film a lot.