QUENTIN TARANTINO'S SLOWBURN FOLLOWUP 'KILL BILL VOL. 2'

Michael Madsen in Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL VOL. 2 Year: 2004 Rating: ****

The difference of Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL volumes 1 and 2 is like comparing PULP FICTION with JACKIE BROWN: the first is to please everyone, and the second for himself...

So the first BILL (mostly without David Carradine's Bill) has something to entertain fans of eclectic genres ranging from high-octane karate to swiftly-edited action to exploitation-horror to Asian anime... but the perfectly cast Uma Thurman as The Bride's final installment is a far more deep and personal journey...

David Carradine in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Providing both pros and cons, since the second BILL certainly needs more action, especially the very-very end when she winds up at Bill's hidden Latin villa to collect her daughter, and the ultimately vengeful payoff... as the original screenplay had them sword-fighting under a moonlit beach instead of a five-second battle, while both are seated for what could have been a nighttime margarita patio party...

Carradine's monologue involving "Clumsy Clark Kent was Superman's take on the human race" is delivered effectively by an actor vastly underused since his days as Caine on KUNG FU, followed by his Golden Globe-nominated big-screen role, infusing his genuine musical skills as Woody Guthrie in BOUND FOR GLORY...

Uma Thurman and David Carradine in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Herein, as a melancholy kind of tattered sage-musician killer, he plays an ancient flute a few times during Tarantino's signature flashbacks and, while both BILL episodes rely on the usual non-linear approach, the second feature... lacking the wish-fulfilling action-packed bedlam... is easier to follow to become more involved/invested in...

With RESERVOIR DOGS, PULP FICTION and JACKIE BROWN, Tarantino's directorial style began as a stylistic-combination of French New Wave, classic Martin Scorsese, 1970's blaxploitation (ala Jack Hill) and bloody Sam Peckipah... which eventually almost entirely morphed into Sergio Leone... literally here with the tensely-mounting Ennio Morricone 'Lee Van Cleef introduction score' from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY when The Bride and Bill first reunite during the doomed B&W-shot wedding-rehearsal backstory...

David Carradine in KILL BILL VOL. 2

When Bill subtly and devilishly agrees with The Bride's mundane fiance about living dangerously, it's clear why Carradine was perfect for a role originally intended for the famously handsome/sophisticated Warren Beatty... when the double-feature was intended as a kind of James Bond spectacular before becoming a desert-traipsing modern-Western suiting both the Leone homage and Carradine's rural-traipsing legacy...

These sparser vast-desert elements almost entirely canvasing VOL 2 compared to the first film's eclectic crashing into the quaint American suburbs and big city Tokyo... and here, some of the coolest scenes entail Tarantino's good-luck-charm Michael Madsen as Bill's younger brother Budd, burying The Bride alive in a sequence that's somewhat tedious...

Victoria Lucai and Larry Bishop in KILL BILL VOL. 2

As Madsen's most effective scene occurs beforehand, with Budd at his most pathetic and powerless, creeping late into the Texas cowboy bar where he works... when former biker-flick-actor Larry Bishop channels The Coen Brother's BLOOD SIMPLE grouchy Texas bar-owner Dan Hedaya, lecturing Budd as if he had never amounted to anything, ever...

Providing one of Madsen's best performances as it's a non-performance showcasing the severely mundane purgatory of how so many tough-guy/has-beens wind up... yet still harboring a residual of inner-strength, deep down...

Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Which is what Uma Thurman's resiliently heroic Bride's doing throughout... until squaring off against Daryl Hannah as the one-eyed Elle Driver who, had this been the originally-intended Beatty flick, would have been Bill's most faithful Bond-girl sidekick... but in this open-desert-saga she's a connected rogue providing The Bride's biggest challenge...

Overall making VOL 2 a deliberate downgrade as a prolonged end-of-the-road, which was probably never intended to equal the beginning-of-the-road blastoff... like how the meticulously-paced monastery or  Civil War sequences from GOOD BAD UGLY compare to Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach's rudimentary hangman schemes...

Uma Thurman and Gordon Liu in KILL BILL VOL. 2

But it's the middle-section when Tarantino makes his karate-flick an actual Japanese-language-with-subtitles martial arts cult-classic where... as The Bride's trained by real-life-karate-expert Gordon Liu (channeling Keye Luke from KUNG FU combined with The Tasmanian Devil) within an epic-stairwell-leading fortress... the comparably staggered KILL BILL VOL 2 finally holds nothing back...

Peaking in the middle while providing a strategic link between primary battles that makes this final outing a gloriously ecstatic whimper following the explosively prolonged bang... something not as great, perhaps, but far worth re-watching being more character-driven through the action than action-driven through the characters.

Uma Thurman and in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman and Gordon Liu in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Gordon Liu in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 2

David Carradine in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL VOL. 2

From KILL BILL VOL. 2

David Carradine and Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Samuel L. Jackson in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Christopher Allen Nelson, Uma Thurman and Caitlin Keats in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Bo Svenson and Jeannie Epper in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman and Caitlin Keats in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Parks in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Daryl Hannah in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Michael Madsen in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman and Gordon Liu in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman and David Carradine in KILL BILL VOL. 2

Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 2

From KILL BILL VOL. 2

Sid Haig in KILL BILL VOL. 2