Did I go see "Jersey Girl" by mistake? (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (23 April 2004)

There are a few traits I share with the late screen comic W.C. Fields: we've both spent time in Philadelphia, although I wouldn't use it for my epitaph; we've both indulged in fermented beverages; we're not inordinately fond of kids. At the end of "Kill Bill Volume 1" Bill asked Sophie "Does she know her daughter's alive?" so I knew a 4- or 5-year-old was bound to turn up in Volume 2 at some point. Little did I know she would take over the movie.
Uma Thurman is back as Beatrix the Bride, whose name gets bleeped out once but not afterwards. She announces during an old-time-looking black and white back-projection car ride that "when I reach my destination, I'm gonna kill Bill." (Volume 1 explained her incentive.) Let me skip ahead to when that finally happens: armed with a gun (for a change) as well as her trusty Hattori Hanzo sword, she arrives at Bill's Mexican hacienda, slinks inside, steels her nerves and confronts---a little girl pointing a toy gun at her. That image (and the reaction cut to Thurman) is probably the single best thing in the movie. After that, though, "Kill Bill Volume 2" just .... stops .... dead.
I've heard there are people who find small children endlessly fascinating, even if they're not their own. But as I sat watching, I felt like a guest trapped with proud young parents showing home video of their offspring: "Oh, look, there is playing with her Christmas presents, isn't that cute? Oh look, there she is eating cereal, isn't that precious?? Oh look, there she is upchucking the cereal, isn't that the most adorable thing you've ever seen???" Uh, no... During this more or less endless footage of "B.B.," not only is it not "Kill Bill" any more, it's not even Tarantino, unless he's morphed into Kevin Smith while we weren't looking. At one point it occurred to me maybe he was spoofing the cloyingly saccharine (mis)use of young children in movies, but probably I was grasping at straws. I think he just found the tyke fascinating and expected we would find her likewise. Our sinister ol' Quentin did surface briefly when Bill was prompting the girl to tell the dead fish story, apparently suggesting to Beatrix that B.B. had killers' blood in her veins; this would have tied in with the later (and also endless) Superman story.
I wouldn't have minded all this so much if Volume 2 had been more of a romp to that point, more in the spirit of Volume 1, which generated great emotional momentum (immeasurably aided by Zamfir's "Lonely Shepherd," which I will never hear the same again) and reached a dramatic climax that had me almost salivating for what would ensue. None of this tingling adrenaline sweep survives to Volume 2; instead Volume 2 reminded me a lot of Tarantino's earlier "Jackie Brown," a casually paced series of set-pieces punctuated by some out-of-the-blue violent moments. The black and white chapel scene immediately preceding the massacre serves no purpose that I can fathom except to introduce Bill onscreen, but he seems a fairly mundane character, with a lisp yet (which he didn't have in Volume 1). There's nothing menacing about him even though we know all these people are about to be murdered on his order. Aside from a few pointless details (we learn the bride would be working in a record store--why not a video store, Q.T.?) the massacre remains as much a mystery as in Volume 1. Don't suppose it was inserted just to give Sam Jackson a speaking part?
Don't get me wrong, there are some effective moments in Volume 2 although they require us to accept that Beatrix has declined greatly from the hyperalert revved-up killing machine she seemed to be at the chronological end of Volume 1, driving off in the "Pussy Wagon" having just disposed of Vernita. Her move on Budd seems downright amateurish, allowing him to gain the upper hand even though he comes off as a cartoonish country bumpkin who doesn't even search her before he buries her alive and ties her up very sloppily--jeez, didn't he see that Ashley Judd movie where she escaped from a similar predicament? Tarantino does a good job technically with light and sound during the burial but since we know in advance she's going to survive it, he should've come up with a more novel kind of horrible death, like maybe having all her blood drained out of her--no wait, that was in a Sherlock Holmes movie from the Forties.
Others have rightly highlighted the Pai Mei and Elle Driver sequences. The former's a sly tribute to all those chop-socky flicks with the camera zooming in and the master stroking his beard etc. but the "cruel tutelage" seems really cruel and one wonders what Bill gains from sending his young female trainees to such a school; did Elle become a more effective assassin after Pai Mei plucked her eye out? Wouldn't that screw up her depth perception? The Beatrix/Elle death match becomes a Three Stooges cartoon and isn't even finished. Would Beatrix leave such a loose (albeit blind) end? But then in Volume 1 she seemed to be inviting Vernita's daughter to come after her some day....
At first I wasn't going to do a review until after I'd seen Volume 2 again; I wound up seeing Volume 1 seven times and liked it better each time, but I'm not pulled to see Volume 2 again as I was Volume 1. I know I'll have to contend with B.B. again and also the bizarre depiction of Bill who by the end seems the campiest screen villain since Dirk Bogarde in "Modesty Blaise." He never seems particularly interested in killing Beatrix, doesn't seem to care much if she kills him or not. Not only did he not spend the 4 or 5 years with B.B. indoctrinating her against Beatrix, he seems to have told her "Mommy's asleep but she'll be back." That doesn't seem to square with what he told Elle on the phone in Volume 1: "We've done a lot to her, and if she ever wakes up, we'll do a lot more...." The final fight between them lasts about six seconds before she employs her secret "Exploding Heart" technique---by the way, why didn't she use that earlier, such as when Budd was hovering over her and she had her hands available? Could've saved herself the trouble of fighting her way out of the grave a la TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer....
If any one line seems to sum up the whole saga, it's when the hired Asian killer with the shotgun changes her mind after she confirms Beatrix is pregnant. She says "Congratulations" and leaves... so even in this "alternate movie universe" as Tarantino has called it, this "movie that characters in my movies would go see," girls may kick ass and all, but ultimately they're still girls, still succumb to the whole maternal-instinct thing. Is that the kind of squishiness Tarantino remembers from his beloved "grindhouse" days? Now if the Asian killer had said "Congratulations" and then blasted away anyway (needing to miss of course), requiring Beatrix to kill her, THAT would have been a true grindhouse tribute.
I don't even recall much of the music from Volume 2 except the Meiko Kaji tune from Volume 1. I'll probably buy the soundtrack anyway. Least memorable character: Michael Parks as the Mexican pimp, even though he was onscreen forever (and it felt like it). Had nothing to do except show off his fine-Corinthian-leather accent. Most memorable character: Sid Haig as the bartender in his couple of moments. Too bad Tarantino couldn't have let him play the obnoxious owner or something. Most missed character from Volume 1: Sophie. Seeing her again would've been a treat, even (or especially) missing an arm or two. I would imagine Uma will get another Oscar nod and would deserve it even more this time around. She IS "Kill Bill." Her triple take after hearing that Bill "overreacted" is priceless.
Okay maybe Q.T. never meant this to be an issue but a lot of us are probably wondering if during the anime in Volume 1 that was supposedly a young Bill in the white suit. Maybe he'll throw us a bone some day? DVD? Prequel? How 'bout it, dude.....