Kill Bill, Volume 2 directed by Quentin Tarantino Buena Vista Home Entertainment   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	I'm at a loss. I can recount examples of sequels that were better than the original, and even more examples of sequels that couldn't touch the originals. But here, with Tarantino's Kill Bill, we have a situation where the guy made one movie and it was released (if you believe the PR machine) in two parts. Twenty years ago, Kill Bill would have been released as a 3-hour-plus epic, with an intermission. So the fact that Volume 1 was released last fall and Volume 2 this past spring should mean nothing, because we should remember that we're watching one film. Right? So: I'm at a loss. As anyone who regularly reads DVD reviews at Bluecoupe knows, I loved Volume 1. I believe I was more than frank about that. But Volume 2? If I can reduce my feelings about it to a single question, that would be: What the hell happened? Tarantino has pulled a Wachowski. A Matrix 2. What I mean is, in Matrix 2 there was that stupid fight with Neo battling 100 Agent Smiths. Cool, huh? Yeah, until you remember that Neo can fly. So why would he ever bother to fight 100 anythings? Same here. We know the Bride, played by Uma Thurman, is one kick-ass mama. She's tough. She's smart. She knows how to fight. And yet here we have a scene in which the Bride cases a joint, evaluating her kill strategy. She knows the guy -- Bill's brother Budd, played by Michael Madsen -- is in his trailer. She knows he's facing the door. She knows that he knows something's afoot (he's been warned). And yet she still chooses to attack from the door, full-on. And -- surprise! -- she gets shot. This is nothing more than a cheap way for Tarantino to get the Bride into the next setup. Which, in turn, sets up a flashback. Which, in turn, sets up her escape. All of which easily could have been handled the right/honest/smart way -- with the same story elements and characters. Done as it is, Tarantino has managed to make his lead character look dumb and her adversary look dumber (which neither of them are). What does Kill Bill, Volume 2 show? You might think Volume 1 was just a lucky break; but it's too good for that. On the other hand, Tarantino's treatment of Volume 2 is puzzling. It has none of the panache, style, and wit of the earlier film. Volume 1 had characters who believed in something; not the fight, but the reason for the fight. You could sense that Tarantino really thought about every scene, in a high-drama, epic, Greek way. You could sense that he took the time to craft characters and a story that mattered. With Volume 2, you get the sense that Tarantino threw stuff in that he thought would be cool -- but it isn't. Volume 2 has none of the great stuff Volume 1 had. In fact, it is so vastly different that you wonder if Tarantino actually made this film. Even the way the DVD is put together is suspect. There's one scene that shows Bill killing members of an angry mob. The action is smart, spare and very Tarantino. To tell the truth, it's the only genuinely Tarantino-like scene on the DVD. It finally gives David Carradine something to do and earns him his bad-ass pedigree. More important, it sets up the feelings the Bride has for Bill. But here's the thing -- it's a deleted scene. It's not actually in the movie. So all the emotional revelation it brings you is a cheat. Like: Here it is, but you can't have it. It means nothing to the film. Whoever made this choice could not have been more wrong. In many ways, this scene is everything, the lynchpin that the Bride and Bill's relationship is built on. So, what do you get in the actual film? You get sort of a half-fight between the Bride and her master. Nothing too thrilling. Then there's the fight between the Bride and Budd, which you don't get because someone else does her dirty work. And there's the fight between the Bride and Elle Driver (played by Daryl Hannah), which is (1) too short and (2) too tame; I've seen rougher, tougher fights in TV's Alias. Plus, the fight's climax is almost silly, fully expected and open-ended. Which, again, makes no sense in the mythic world of Kill Bill. The movie doesn't tell us Elle is dead. Truth is, I don't think Tarantino knows whether she's dead or not; I think he couldn't decide. But I know this: The Bride isn't the kind of killer who'd leave that caliber of enemy alive. When the Bride finally gets to Bill, when she finally discovers the Big Secret (no spoilers here), it's just not that shocking. And a few minutes later, when she finally has her chance to do the guy in -- after all this suffering and violence and angst -- there's nothing. She delivers some Asian heart-stopping blow, and that's that. No Samurai swordplay. No spaghetti-western gunfights. Nothing. It's as if Tarantino was trying to emulate the death of Don Corleone in The Godfather. Brando's collapse in the garden. That was tragedy, the death of a king, an old man/monster pretending to be a monster for his grandchild, and the grandchild, pretending to kill him, kills him. That was poetry. That was a Moment. But Kill Bill, Volume 2 proves that Tarantino is no Coppola. And Bill's death is not the Don's. Rather, it's a pathetic whimper of an ending to the wimpy second half of what could have a been an epic tale of its time. | September 2004   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. He writes advertising for a large marketing firm and is building a small book publishing company in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he lives with his wife and sons.	When the Bride finally gets to Bill, when she finally discovers the Big Secret (no spoilers here), it's just not that shocking. And a few minutes later, when she finally has her chance to do the guy in -- after all this suffering and violence and angst -- there's nothing.