The Emperor's New Movie (spoilers inside!)

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 2004)

Now, I really love Tarantino, and I particularly liked Kill Bill Vol 1. Maybe not his best, but still: The 60's inspired, extremely styled format, the utterly cool kung fu/manga/splatter mix, pretty cool dialogue (not in the league of Pulp Fiction, but still), all presented in a quick fashion with hardly any dull moments.
But, no matter how much I liked Tarantino and Vol 1, I must say that Vol 2 hardly has any of those qualities. Lots of uninspired dialogue, slow story-telling, a lot less fighting scenes and those who are there are pretty lame.
In addition, the violence in Vol 2 is no longer of the distanced, choreographed kind (except for a few scenes with Pai Mei), but of a closer, agonizing, if not to say disgusting kind. B being buried alive, plucking the eye(s) out of Elle, dying in agony of poisonous snake bites, and so forth.

Also, the fighting scene at the end between Bill and B is a disappointment. A few seconds fighting after endless minutes of uninspired talking, where the 30 years older lover Bill is talking sooo slooowly and dropping the word "kiddo" to his former lover a number of times too much. Adding to that, the redundant end scene where BB is watching cartoons.
All in all, I feel that Tarantino rushed this one out the door to fast. Ok, it _is_ cool to do a sequel which is really different from the first, _but_ "different" is no excuse for "badly executed".
I don't know, but I was really disappointed with this film, especially considering the director's former achievements and, above all, all this talk about "the great magnum-epos" and so forth. To me, a true case of the emperor's new clothes.