Movies without constant action suck

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2004)

Let's take, for example, 'The Godfather'. I can't remember any sword fights, jumpsuits, or acrobatics. There were only one or two moments when anyone was even firing a gun. This, clearly, is one of the worst movies ever made. Where's the action?
Another example would be 'Taxi Driver'. Sure, the end has some fine elements to it, including a hand being shot with a .44 magnum pistol, but the rest is all this 'I'm Travis and I'm afflicted' crap. No action! Garbage!
Now, in our day we have Kill Bill Volume 2. Volume 1... now there's a movie. No real motives, no sympathy, no true focus besides veins and arteries being severed that spurt blood with more vigor than an open fireplug. As for volume 2, it's unfortunate, shocking even, that the film would open with something akin to the 'Bonasera' scene from the Godfather (not counting the reprise of the first scene from Vol. 1). The tension that the wedding chapel scene builds, forcing the audience to wait for the inevitable and gory (but mostly unseen) conclusion is heartbreaking, but.. . where's the blood? Budd getting chastised by his cokehead boss in the most dry and outstanding bit of honest humor since the Dude got chewed out by the Malibu chief of police was nice, but Michael Madsen didn't subsequently slash his face, remove his ear or even shoot him in the skull somewhere. Why not? It's an ACTION movie! They should have had Jerry Bruckheimer do Vol. 2... that way some kick-ass spaceships and aliens would have come in and blown the place apart, just at the climax of the two-part epic where Uma Thurman and David Carradine have the most intense battle scene in the movie before even lifting their swords.
I hope that an audience which does not recognize, admire and enjoy the abilities of the writers and actors who generate more suspense, fear (claustrophobia in this case), excitement and laughter without a drop of blood or a fart joke does not become too powerful. The failure to appreciate what Vol. 2 has to offer will cause us to miss the value in the sublime and psychological tactics of books like 'Great Expectations' and 'Of Mice and Men', movies like 'Dr. Strangelove' and 'Vertigo' or anything that prefers to evoke an emotional response from its viewers over a knee-jerk reaction.
Then again, I should probably never accuse Tarantino of being sublime...