Kill Bill, Volume 2

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 2.0

Part one was a hyper-kinetic action picture; this one's more of a mood piece with unnecessarily extended dialogue and long running time (together, both films run close to four hours). The eventual confrontation with Bill (David Carradine; truly incredible) is more complex than the movie leads you to expect, but then again Tarantino's awkward attempts at sentimentality and emotion are also bewildering - they work against his tongue-in-cheek approach. The script seems particularly weak and unfocused here, and it's become clear that neither Michael Madsen's character nor Daryl Hannah's side stories are altogether necessary. Volume 1 reveled in outré coolness; Volume 2 wants to talk first and cut heads off later (against Tuco from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly's advice).