666. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

Starring: Uma Thurman, Michael Madsen, David Carradine

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Running Time: 137 mins

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is an American film and the sequel to Kill Bill: Vol. 1. After The Bride has defeated O-Ren Ishii, she aims to complete her series of vengeful attacks on the remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, ultimately leading her all the way to Bill.

Well, while this is still entertaining and interesting to watch, this latter stage of the story doesn’t really compare with the first phase. Rather than the mad action and craziness that we saw so much in the first film, this is a much slower-paced film, as it’s all about tying up loose ends from Vol. 1.

We were left on the edge of our seats with the petrifying cliffhanger of the first film, and this one starts off almost pretty much where we left off. There are a few flashbacks, but the majority of the story is a direct continuation from the first film, seeing as Kill Bill was a multi-film production.

However, the main difference, and the main pitfall, in this film is the way the story is set out. I was so impressed by how comical and mad the first film was, and while there are still many elements of that during the fight scenes and the very long Karate Kid-esque sequence, it’s just not as crazy.

There are definitely less battles, and there’s a whole lot more slow discussions. Initially, you dispel this as simply boring, however coming towards the epic climax of the film, you realise that it taps in to a much more emotional side of things, which wasn’t really evident in the first film.

So, the main objective of this film is finishing up on where we left off from the previous film, however it just isn’t fast enough either. As I said, there are fewer fight scenes and more dialogue scenes, and while that has its own benefits, it makes for a much slower-paced story, that’s just not at all as exciting to follow along to.

One of the other things that puzzled me about this was how the cinematography changed so much. As a multi-film production, you’d expect it to remain pretty much identical, but in this, you don’t get any of that crazy comic book feel that was so brilliant in the first film, and that means that, as well as not having such an exciting story, it’s nowhere near as exciting to look at, so that’s why it gets a 7.5.