Carl the Critic: Talks about "Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2"

Experience/Expectations: I have never been a big Quentin Tarantino fan, but I do respect the guy for being successful. I just have found his movies to be too violent, and have a lot of pervasive language, and being a horror movie freak you would expect me to enjoy those things. He is different from most film makers, and I guess that is why many find him appealing. For me though there are only a few movies that he made that I like, and both of the "Kill Bill" movies are two of them. Many feel that "Pulp Fiction" was his best, and though I admit I enjoyed that film, I didn't enjoy it as much as the "Kill Bill" movies. But now before I forget, let's talk about the films story.

Story: The movie begins with the "murder" of a character named Beatrix Kiddo (but she is not called this until the second movie, but she is called "the Bride") on her wedding day by her ex-lover who is simply named Bill, with his group of ladies who are named after poisonous snakes. But when she is killed she is carrying a child within her womb (which adds to the brutality of what Bill has done) but instead of murdering Kiddo, she was instead in a coma for a long time. When she wake she kills two men who were about to rape her in her comatose state. She then goes to seek revenge on the five people who have wronged her. One is a Japanese-American who is protected by her body guards (including a psychotic teen-aged girl). Another woman who is a stay at home mom (who is murdered right before her own daughter's eyes), another woman has only one eye, another assassin is is Bill's brother Budd, and finally there's Bill himself.

Critique: Well this certainly is action packed, and it has the violence, and gore that a Quentin Tarantino fan would love. It is structured branching style, with multiple layers of branching. This is evident with the uses of flashbacks, and discontinuity in the Vol. 1. Vol. 2 is more continuous but it still uses flash backs. When making a movie about revenge, the branching structure proves to be effective, but usually the best structure used is a spiraling structure, like for example "I Spit On Your Grave."

Non-the-less, the story is still very good, it's you're classic revenge story, but the part that baffles me is that Tarantino had to make two movies, I guess this is so his paycheck gets bigger. The acting is good, but there are a few plot devises that seem unnecessary and make the movie slowly progress to the ending. Some of the film consist of long dialogue moments that made me look at my watch and go "Isn't this suppose to be an action movie?" But after you get passed the dialogue, the actions prove to be satisfying.

Overall: This is a film that I really do like, but it's definitely not perfect, so I give it a 7.5 out of 10.