Kill Bill Volume 1
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
USA 2003 18 R
Review by Jim Eadon
Get ready for a perverted fetishist's dream come true...
In a conscious decision to avoid spoilers, I did not know a lot about
Kill Bill in advance (other than it had Uma Thurman in a yellow number, oh, and the climactic surprise, oh and the plot, all of which were blatantly revealed by the fucking trailer). I was anticipating this movie with more curiosity than anything else this year (2003) which is not saying a lot, mind you. It's been a while since Tarantino directed a movie. His first two films,
Reservoir dogs and
Pulp Fiction, were mind blowing. His third,
Jackie Brown, lacked the vivid power of the first movies.
Dusk Till Dawn was sheer shite, but it was a collaborative effort.
Zoom forward what must be nearly...
ONE DECADE LATER.
Whatever drugs Tarantino's been snorting, they've fried his brain, he's become Hollywood-ised. In
Kill Bill, he's produced the movie equivalent of fast food, it causes a swift rush that decays into a endless downer of mild depression and lacklustre moods. Yes, I know Hollywood movies are like that by default these days. But I was expecting something a bit special from
Kill Bill and that expectation is always enough to doom a movie, it's like anticipating sunshine, and getting bogged down in some precipitous outrage, a million flying pigs pissing out of the sky.
Despite the movie affecting the usual look-at-me-I'm-so-cool bullshit mentality, it's not all bad tidings. Many aspects of this movie are nicely done, like the partial nonlinearity of the telling of the story, as virtually invented and mastered by Orson Welles in his monument,
Citizen Kane. Mind you, the plot itself is extremely linear,
Kill Bill is about revenge. I may be speaking too soon: the full title of this flick is
Kill Bill Vol 1. So it seems we'll have to wait and see at least the next installment before we can truly judge this episode. Groan. This vaguely irksome trend can be squarely blamed upon the success of the chapter-based
Lord Of The Rings megamovies.
Kill Bill contains generous dollops of Uma Thurman, one of the few goddesses ever to have graced the planet, though she was too toned to be the feminine beauty she used to be. But that is necessary, I suppose. This brings me onto my rant du jour: what is it with movies this year? I know my conjecture may sound sexist and here let me say that I respect women as equals, or as my superiors in most capacities, tact being just one :-) However, as the more alert reader may have noticed, men and women sport physical differences, which is why they do not compete as equals at the Olympics, etc. Returning to my belaboured point, it seems two out of three action movies (circa 2003) features women in the lead ass-kicking role. Hasn't this joke worn thin? At least Thurman was more convincing than the pathetic
Charlie's Angels, but even so, it wasn't even funny watching all that wacky fight choreography thrown away on such an implausible and absurd girly dance. (Odd point about the choreography: the even more surreal scraps in
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, where people would fly, were more convincing, .ie. not very).
Lucie liu was useless, she can act about as far as she can see, which, judging from her myopic looks, is not far beyond the tip of her cute nose. In comparison, the
Sofie character (Julie Dreyfus) was a far superior villain, at least I was curious about what happened to her, one way or the other. Hell, even the school girl character rocked in (an admittedly oderous) comparison to Lucie. It was obvious from the story and dialogue that we were supposed to sympathise a little with Lucie, but I simply couldn't have cared less about her character. (Talking of which, why on Earth do some Americans like to say,
"I could care less?, when they actually mean,
couldn't?)
Kill Bill is a hair-pulling cat fight scaled up by obscene quantities of cash and folly. I abhor this movie, yet I must relinquish my attack on one front:
Kill Bill is far from boring, I only yawned a couple of times (it's difficult to yawn when a movie screams incessantly at you). And it's been a boring year, so far, in the Hollywood sewer. In fact,
Kill Bill is almost a comedy, an incredibly bloodthirsty comedy. I was laughing with
Kill Bill and I was laughing at
Kill Bill, and all the time I uncomfortably aware that the sickest joke is on us. This uneasy mirth was mixed with much cringing at the sicko minds of the people behind this artefact of lunacy.
As par for the course with Tarantino's movies, only more openly now,
Kill Bill is a rip off of Japanese film and anime, but
Kill Bill has crude pop where you would expect to find Japanese subtlety. But the most alarming feature of
Kill Bill is its mind-boggling decadence. One imagines the director drooling over his beleathered and bepyjama'ed beauties as they lop off limbs as if pruning crimson roses high on crack. More startling is the apparent obsession with
Japanese school girls. Unfortunately, I'm not joking. (See spoilers).
 |
|
|
spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
|
| |
Minor gripe: the entire movie is willfully implausible. Uma wouldn't have been able to move a muscle after four years in a coma, let alone kill two full grown, snarly, stereotypical bastards with a convenient knife and escape. Why did only dawn upon one character to use a gun? And so on. Everything is subservient to style. I don't mind too much such liberties in Kill Bill, which is blatantly movie fu/cartoonish, and it allows for some great scenes and situations. Unfortunately, though, the movie is emotionally shallow.
Tarantino has a twisted sense of humour though, or is it good marketing? We have to watch the implied Kill Bill Vol. 2 to find out how many body parts were hacked from Sophie's poor body? That sums up Kill Bill, it is perverted, cheap, gimmicky, American psycho tat. And all those spurting necks, oh my!
Surely it wasn't just me being a pious twat when I thought that the scene with the school girl with the nails driven into her skull was sick. (It was not without humour mind you, much of this film is hilarious and abhorrent simultaneously). The parading of show-off mother-murdering violence set in front of a little daughter (note how Tarantino soon rushes us away from the poor thing, just in case we might get too close to the ramifications of the horror spurting from the screen).?? Sick in the membrane! I do hope no susceptible nutters out there were taking notes.
|
|
There are no more spoilers below this
point, except maybe in any user talkback
comments.
End of spoilers corner
|
|
|
We haven't even got an ending yet! Oh, I geddit,
we'll have to hand over more cash to see Vol.
2 to find out. Kerrrrrrrching!!!!!! One movie,
two bloody admission fees, two DVD's and a third
combo DVD, no doubt. Get one movie for the price
of two, nice ending for some, i.e. greed-bitches
Mirror-fucking-max/MPAA... Why should we pay,
in principle, to see the other half of this
rip off (in more ways than one) movie?
Add your comment to this page
| | | | |
| From: |
Greystreak | Subject: | 2003-11-01 06:52:45 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Frank | Subject: | 2003-11-21 02:02:15 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Frank | Subject: | 2003-11-21 02:03:11 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Frank | Subject: | 2003-11-21 02:03:34 |
| | | | |
| From: |
laura | Subject: | 2004-07-22 19:48:16 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Hank | Subject: | 2004-08-11 02:00:23 |
| | | | |
| From: |
ryan | Subject: | 2006-02-09 11:13:27 |
| | | | |
help: how to add your comment Page hits: 5796
The controversy continues -
Kill Bill Vol 1 sucks or rocks?
The second coming -
Kill Bill Vol 2 review
