Kill Bill Vol. 2 (**1/2)
review by Jon Waterman

The bride is back to finish her “unfinished business.” She started her rampage in the first film cutting through the forest of defenders with her mighty one-of-a-kind sword. Only a few obstacles stand in her way, but they’re bigger, badder and better fighters. Can she accomplish what she set out to do? Can she beat the odds and actually...Kill...Bill?

The two things that stood out in the first one, the varying visual styles and the overabundance of blood and violence, are virtually absent this time around. So, can the film hold up without these seemingly key elements?

The visuals do vary somewhat subtly from scene to scene and the flashback material is done in a different manner from the rest. However, little if anything new is brought to the table. When it’s 70s kung-fu time, we get the muted blues and greens and heavy, heavy grains. There’s black and white in the beginning, etc. The two volumes are consistent in their approach and methods, and with such a long running time overall, it’s tough to imagine there could be a whole lot of new techniques to offer at this point. Even so, the eye-catching flair is gone.

Also gone are the extravagant fight scenes with gallons of blood flying everywhere. These fights are more subdued as far as gore level, but still pretty substantial overall. But with out the sensationalism of the squirting veins and body parts, it loses a lot of the appeal and the fun. The expectations have been built for more of the same and perhaps at a heightened level for these later battles. Instead the film moves in the complete opposite direction with anti-climactic sequences.

The storyline does get more fleshed out like I had hoped, but only to a certain extent. We get some insight into her training and a bit of history with Bill and the events leading up to the wedding massacre. These lengthy, yet limited, scenes were nice because they broke away from the outlined plot structure presented within the film. It still didn’t seem like enough to me. I wanted it to go further back in time with Bill and the Bride or learn more about the group of assassins as a whole. Neither occurs. By the way, excuse me for potentially coming off as stupid or missing something, but I saw no significance in learning the Bride’s real name. Beeping it out until the big reveal seemed to serve no purpose other than to get people to come back and see the sequel.

It seems obvious that both parts be watched in one sitting, and if you put the two together, you’d have a great (but long) film. As it stands, if you’re a fan of the first one, then please see this one and have some fun. If you never saw Volume 1, then see them both on the same night and get ready for a ride. If you didn’t like the first one all that much, then you definitely won’t like the conclusion. The movie still works and is entertaining, but not nearly as much as the first. Once again, I was left wanting more, but this time there’s nothing to look forward to.

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