Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) - A satisfying conclusion but lacks the action of Vol. 1

Review No. : 0013

Title : Kill Bill Vol. 2

Year : 2004

Director : Quentin Tarantino

Country :  United States

World’s Verdict : Rotten Tomatoes – 84%; Metacritic – 83 out of 100; IMDB – 8.0 out of 10.0.

My Verdict : 3.8 out of 5.0.

  

It’s not fair for me to compare Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 since the two were originally intended to be one big movie and one good story.  In any case I decided to review it separately and Kill Bill Vol. 2 is a few notches down for me but please remember that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 is the continuation of the story of “The Bride” (Uma Thurman).  In Vol. 1 she decides to murder those who tried to kill her during her wedding.  She successfully kills two of the women on her hit list, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu).  In Vol. 2 she continues to hunt down the rest of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and this includes Budd (Michael Madsen), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) and the leader Bill (David Carradine).

Why is Vol. 1 better than Vol. 2?

• The action scenes – “The Bride’s” samurai combat against the Crazy 88 group, her duel with hot Gogo, the knife fight between her and Vernita Green and her subtle match with O-Ren Ishii.  These scenes are full of action and thrill, well directed and beautiful.  In Vol. 2 there are also good action scenes like the fight between “The Bride” and her Kung Fu mentor Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) and also the short fight with Elle Driver.   What I’m trying to say is that Vol. 1 fight scenes are way much better in terms of choreography and artistic quality.
• The iconic and beautiful costumes – in Vol. 1 we can never forget the black and yellow suit of the Bride, the black assassination catsuit of Oren-Ishii, the simple blue jogging outfit of Vernita Green, the slutty nurse disguise of Elle Driver, the slutty school girl uniform of Gogo and much more.  In Vol. 2, the only costume that we will remember is Pai Mei’s garb.
• The songs are better – the songs in Vol. 1 are also memorable because you can easily tie them with scenes like Elles Drivers’ whistling the theme from Twisted Nerve, when Oren-Ishii and the Crazy 88 walks down the aisle with “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” playing, and Nancy Sinatra’s haunting song, “Bang Bang”, plays after “The Bride” gets shot in the head.  In Vol. 2 the only scene with a good song I can remember is in the closing credits when “Goodnight Moon” by Shivaree is being played.

Why is Vol. 2 still a good movie?

• Because just like Vol. 1 the non-linear storytelling still keeps us engage.
• Because it closes the loop and answers most of our questions.
• Because there’s kung fu.
• Because the death of Bill is non-conventional and nicely done.

I need to reiterate that Vol. 2 is actually not an inferior movie to Vol. 1, it perfectly closes the story of “The Bride” but just like any Broadway play the first act is usually the lively one.