Kill Bill vol. 1

My rating: 3 - Uneven ... or maybe a 5!

Yeah, yeah, there's violence and it's over the top and exceedingly gruesome, but it's supposed to be. That's the whole point! Geyser's of blood are there to point out the absurdity, not revel in the violence. OK, there may be some revelling.

My main problem with the movie came not from the violence, but the pacing. There's a reason the studio execs wanted to shorten Tarantino's fourth film; Kill Bill's pacing is herky-jerky, like a dyspeptic drunkard after a chili festival. The opening is great, but the movie starts meandering almost right away and could use with some serious Mighty Xacto Knife of Cutting to speed things up. In particular, the mega fight scene is about 10 minutes too long (much like how the Matrix: Reloaded made the fight scenes interminable). No self-respecting chop-socky auteur would've kept those scenes going that long.

Uma: she's not good. Plenty of people owe their career resurgences to Tarantino. Why on earth he picked Uma, I don't know. Or Darryl, for that matter, but from the 2 minutes she was on screen, she played evil bitch well (I'd rather see Linda Hamilton be given a comeback shot in the Elle role, though). Uma, on the other hand, doesn't have the physical skills or acting chops to pull it off. She's adequate but someone like, say, Carrie Anne Moss (too popular, but my first choice) or Chloe Sevigny (too young) or Michelle Yeoh (too trite) or Maggie Cheung (too unknown) or similar would get my vote over Uma. Plus her swordplay technique sucks; she's no Zatoichi, that's for sure.

For the standard Tarantino fare, there's plenty here to like. The cool factor (though not as hip or cool as Res Dogs or Pulp) is present. The time bending is there, but not so cool. Storyboards. In-joke references. The music is too, at times, but much like the pacing is uneven.

In the end, I was left with the impression that Tarantino was trying to hard to be QUENTIN TARANTINO, like he was asking himself every 30 seconds "what would QUENTIN TARANTINO do?". I think Quentin Tarantino should let Quentin Tarantino be the best Quentin Tarantino he can be and not worry about QUENTIN so much. The ending cliffhanger, for example, is Quentin. The Godzilla shrieks in the middle of a fight scene is QUENTIN. I want more Quentin.

The movie may become a 4 upon later reflection or upon vol. 2's release. But for now it's a 3.

** SPOILER WARNING ** (this is for the analysis folks out there)

** END SPOILER **

....

What? What the hell is this serious criticism auteur shit? Who the hell... Dammit, Chris! I told you never to fuck around with my pages again! Kids these days. I'll get you yet, Moore.

Kill Bill fuckin rocks. It's so fun and wild and gory and thrilling that I clapped so hard that the "butter" congealed. So I wiped it on the teenagers next to me who were gasping at every bit of "violence." Feh. What're they going to do? Beat up and old man? I'll kick their ass!

OK, whatever the critics say and whatever the nutso holy molies want you to believe, this is a kickass action flick. Sure it's full of cute little gotchas. Sure Lucy Liu has got to be the least believable swordfighter ever. Sure the music gets silly stupid. But fuck it! It's a great fuckin time. There's limbs flying all over. Ridiculous deus ex machina saves for the protagonist.

If you don't like this movie, go see Under the Tuscan Sun. Again. You wimp.

Kill Bill vol. 1 gets a 5! - KICKASS! rating from ME, Old Man Brachman. Take that to the bank. And stuff it in your piehole, Chris.