The shallow end of genius

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2004)

How clever of Quentin Tarantino to plunder his favourite movies and rework the highlights into this one note revenge tale, the second half of which tries to add substance to the story after a first volley which had all the depth of a teaspoon of water. You'll read on this site and many others that Kill Bill is a great work, a superb directorial effort, too good to be dismissed as trash according to Kim Newman. Well, not wishing to be rude to Mr.Newman, but this is a load of Thurman. Well directed your action surely is but the dialogue is as clumsy as this sentence without the ironic and therefore clever constructivism exhibited therein. Like this horribly self-indulgent review, every scene has the 'tino yelling 'did you see what i've done there?' at the audience before the entire enterprise eventually collaspses under the weight of it's own self-satisfied smugness. The literary framing device is also a dubious decision as it draws attention to the lack of story and character on display. If Kill Bill were a novel it would be airport lounge material. It could have been great had it been edited with the same ruthless efficency as the action, but it's overlong as a single film with an uneasy shift in pace and tone between the two halves that will surely weaken it as a single film should anyone choose to view it that way in the future. Kitchy, well made rubbish it may be but it's rubbish all the same. Ok, so it's not supposed to be profound but when Tarantino mentions your Kill Bills in the same breath as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Leone's Dollars Trilogy, it's clear that seeing every film under the sun and enjoying them enough to rip them off is not akin to understanding how those movies work and why or, lets face it, how the filmmakers involved reworked genre conventions and movie tropes to produce something fresh and sustantial without being simply derivative.
Soulless stuff.