Here's a spoiler: Beatrix Kiddo. Yup, Beatrix Kiddo, not Herpes Kilpatrick, Maude Montgomery, or Emma Peel is the name of Uma Thurman's samurai-blade wielding ex-assassin, up to now only known as "The Bride," any mention carefully bleeped out of Volume One of Quentin Tarantino's megalomaniac pastiche of every bad movie that ever tickled the director's prodigious fancies.
If your reaction to the climactic revelation of The Bride's real name evokes nothing but a shrug, you're probably not in the target audience: unless you're already IMing your friends, chances are "Kill Bill" is not for you. It's all about the in jokes, the movie geek references, the retro leather jackets and vintage funk tunes.
As fragmented and thinly plotted as the first part, "Kill Bill Volume 2" continues to follow Uma on her bloody quest for revenge. After dispatching Lucy Liu and Vivica A. Fox in "Volume 1," she now trades bodily fluids with trailer-dwelling Michael Madsen (blood for tobacco juice) and goes mano-a-mano with one-eyed Daryl Hannah. Like the video games it seems to be patterned after, the film's climactic enemy is the boss: David Carradine as Bill.
As fragmented and thinly plotted as the first part, "Kill Bill Volume 2" continues to follow Uma on her bloody quest for revenge. After dispatching Lucy Liu and Vivica A. Fox in "Volume 1," she now trades bodily fluids with trailer-dwelling Michael Madsen (blood for tobacco juice) and goes mano-a-mano with one-eyed Daryl Hannah. Like the video games it seems to be patterned after, the film's climactic enemy is the boss: David Carradine as Bill.
Sadistic Glee to Match Mel Gibson
With not much of a story to tell (no matter how often he reshuffles his "chapters"), Tarantino is left with a lot of time on his hands. And what does he spend it on? In a word, stylish suffering. Like that other plotless exercise in physical pain currently sweeping the box office, "Kill Bill" is about passion, pain, and revenge. The stations of the passion of Uma include getting shot in the head, left for dead, abused by a cartoonish martial arts teacher ("Your so-called Kung Fu is really quite pathetic," the subtitles read), blasted with rock salt, darted with needles, punched, bound, cut, drugged, and (in this claustrophobic's worst nightmare) buried alive. With sadistic glee to match Mel Gibson's, Quentin's camera lingers on the pain—when he's not busy focusing on Uma's sexy feet.
But there's also a lot of talk. "Kill Bill 2" is much chattier than the first part, and while the cast, especially Michael Madsen, are being good sports, QT appears to have lost his surefire confidence. Here and there, he still manages to bury a good line or a glib joke in the baggy mess. (A personal favorite: "I poisoned his fishheads.") What's missing, and this is bound to disappoint fans of the first part, are the fights. There is very little actual swordplay, and none of the demented set pieces that gave the first film its insane energy. Tarantino is now copying the same smart-ass shtick and pop pastiche that made him famous in the first place. When Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink ranted about the true meaning of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" in 1992, it was fresh, but now it's a decade later, and when David Carradine goes into a lengthy spiel about Superman, it only feels tired.
Shot in crisp black and white and carefully orchestrated color, "Kill Bill" is handsome to look at, and moment by moment, Tarantino shows undeniable skill. But nothing adds up to much, not the ultra-cool pop culture referencing and least of all the characters. The last thing I expect from a Tarantino movie is to get bored, but "Kill Bill" is much too long. At over four hours, the simple plot becomes an exercise in tedium. "Kill Bill" could have made one badass 90 minute entertainment: weightless, mindless, forgettable, but fun. What should have been a comic strip has turned into a bloated coffee-table book, smacking of self-indulgence. Where is Harvey Scissorhands when you need him?
