I'm going slightly mad.

Rating: 1/10 (26 February 2015)

When sequels are usually released, they are often rubbish, as they are merely cash-ins on the original's success and while they often suck, they usually aren't abysmally bad, ad they are more often lazy than anything else. Sadly, this is a case when the sequel to an already dreadful original is so bad, it makes the original look like a masterpiece by comparison.
The story is that The Bride is still on her bloody revenge, and is now after the head honcho, Bill. However, due to the many obstacles that get in her way, including Bill's bodyguards and the reunion with her daughter, will she be able to kill Bill? My problem with the story is that it is very badly written, from the constant plot holes (e.g. why does the Bride bring a sword with her everywhere she goes, despite facing potentially armed men), useless characters and even more pointless footage than last time. While it is nice to see her training montage or her wedding rehearsal before the massacre in theory, they serve to show things that either the audience already knows, or doesn't care to. Seriously, you could cut huge chunks out of both films, and lump them together as one, and it would be a better film because of it.
Another huge problem is the unsympathetic main character, as despite her understandable motivations for her revenge, she is a sadistic sociopath who kills because it gives her pleasure rather than for revenge, and who doesn't have any remorse for her victims, which (despite what some feminists might have believe) isn't a good role model for the young women potentially watching this movie. What makes this worse however is the fact that when she reunites with her daughter after so long, you don't feel any sympathy, as not only do you feel that she would be an awful mother to the child (something she even admits to by saying that she can never live a normal life), but considering that she killed a mother in front of her 4- year old daughter in the previous film, it is even harder to swallow. It doesn't help that her character is never fully developed either, which makes the film hard to watch as a result.
The main bad guy, Bill, is equally as dull, feeling constantly one- note throughout and gets rather boring because of it, despite David Carradine's great performance, and he often gets the movie's worst lines, including a theory that the Bride is a killer on the inside, and wears her more mature self as a disguise similar to Superman (because as we all know, people like soldiers are always destined to kill people, as they do it on the frontlines). One thing that is very annoying is that while some of the characters are completely pointless, they are the best ones in the film, in particular Michael Madsen's Bud, Gordon Liu's Samurai master or Deryl Hannah's Elle, who is easily the best thing about the film, as the character had the most personality, and Deryl's performance is both charismatic and sexy. You would wish the film was about them than some crazy sociopath, but that isn't the case, and sadly they are usually killed the quickest as well. The more personality you have in the film, the quicker you are killed.
The rest of the script is completely lacklustre as well, as outside of all the plot problems, the film's dialogue is overdone and often ridiculous. While Tarantino's unique style of dialogue may have worked in Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, here it is utterly inane, as unlike the aforementioned films, it isn't funny, quirky or essential to the story, leading to a lot of long winded pointless scenes that make the film feel a lot longer than it is. This story clearly didn't need two parts to tell it, and Tarantino should actually edit his films before he releases them.
It is also casually sadistic as well, as eyes are pulled out and stepped on, a man gets bitten by a snake over and over and a blind woman runs around screaming in agony. It feels very crass as a result, and you would wish Tarantino would grow up already. It also doesn't help that many of the film's major set pieces don't pay off, as they are either too brief or are interrupted by the boring story. This is especially true of the film's climax.
While there are some good elements in the film (good acting and great cinematography for example), overall it is utter crud. Whether it would be the awful writing, unsympathetic characters, sadism, overlong and pointless bits or the utter anticlimax, Kill Bill Vol 2 is an abysmal movie-making experience, that everyone should avoid at all costs in order to stop letting Tarantino's Samurai fan-fics get millions of dollars and well known actors behind it, and to teach him to make proper, grown-up films next time. Complete and utter garbage.