Kill Bill—Vol. 2 Release Date: April 14, 2004 Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Before the cinema was ever an art form, it was a thrill-making machine. Audiences screeched when the Lumiere brothers projected the almost head-on image of a train entering a station back at the turn of the last century; so the notion of a movie as a "ride" was born. If that notion has been debased by the likes of Michael Bay and leagues of brain-dead executives who demand that every bit of footage shot by their minions be possible theme-park fodder, it has been gloriously reprocessed by Quentin Tarantino in his Kill Bill opus, the second part of which is less violent, more chatty, and entirely more ruminative than its dazzling, hysteria-inducing opening volume. Put together, these two wonders constitute a most acute examination of the disreputable magic of the movies. The first film worked the viewer’s tolerance for crass humor and ultraviolence with an unerring aim for the adrenal gland; this edition twists you up with claustrophobic terror and works your family-feeling tearducts. Not that this is Meet Me in St. Louis. Still, Tarantino explores the filial relationship of washed-up killer Budd (Michael Madsen) and still stolid chief assassin Bill (David Carradine) with words and images that stick, and the movie ends with a reunion that’s goofily funny, genuinely disturbing, and oddly moving. That Tarantino can milk such reactions out of a scenario so willfully implausible, employing a battery of seemingly incompatible cinematic styles and techniques, while dropping references that should be taking you outside the movie every 30 seconds on average, isn’t besides the point: it absolutely is the point. This is a movie of head-spinning richness.
—Glenn Kenny
Glenn's Review of Kill Bill—Vol. 1
Quentin Tarantino's most wild-ass effort yet. read more
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