Wannabe writer/critic currently selling PCs - and my soul - at PC World. Spent a lot of time crashi...
Wannabe writer/critic currently selling PCs - and my soul - at PC World. Spent a lot of time crashing intellectual parties in Prague. Now being nice on Ciao! UK.
Member since:13.12.2000
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This is going to be a kind of double-headed review, because it's impossible for me to tell you how great Kill Bill is without telling you why 'Matrix Reloaded' is so shit.
Let's face it - everyone knew we were going to be treated to something rather special after that trailer, which gave us tantalising snippets of action without giving anything away, combined with the ridiculously cool 'Battle without Honor or Humanity' track.
It's rare that a movie turns out to be even better than I expected it to be, and this is one of those few occasions. With 'Kill Bill', Quentin Tarantino has grown up. Here the violence isn't necessarily for comic relief. The violence and gore is cool in the way it's choreographed and the sheer exhilaration of the battles, rather than cool in the 'Ha ha! John Travolta just shot that guy in the face!' way of his previous movies.
A lot of this has to do with Uma Thurman's magnificent central performance. A reformed assassin, she is out for revenge against her former colleagues, who gunned her down on her wedding day. Left for dead and awakening from a four year coma with a metal plate in her head, she seeks to track them down one by one, all the way up to her former lover and boss, Bill. Oh, yeah, and she lost her baby aswell...
The storyline is that simple, and Thurman endows her character with such dignity, single-mindedness, sympathy and regret. She is steely in her intentions and respectful of the people she must kill, but is absolutely determined in her quest.
Think Lee Marvin storming down the corridor in 'Point Blank'. Or Clint Eastwood standing on the flyover in 'Dirty Harry', awaiting the hijacked bus load of kids. That kind of unstoppable determination that makes a character almost scary - a
force of nature, or fate, or a combination of both.
Then the action kicks in, and it is brutal. Despite her unstoppability, The Bride takes some heavy hits, and every fight is utterly convincing as a spectacle - these people really look like they want to kill each other! Each near miss makes you flinch, and every hit the Bride takes makes you wince. She's bruised and bloodied early on, which makes you realise her human fraility.
This is the first reason Kill Bill pisses on 'Matrix Reloaded' - it's brutal, and genuinely thrilling, because you feel that The Bride could really end up dying. Of course, this being a movie, chances are she won't, but you know she can be shot, sliced, and generally have the shit kicked out of her.
Whereas in the Matrix, all the fancy effects look great, but because of the heroe's superhuman powers and control over 'reality', you never get the sense they're in any danger. Keanu survives a battle with a hundred Agent Smiths with his shades still intact, and when he gets in trouble, he flies away. Is that a bit like a deux et machina???
Then there's the special effects. No CGI here in Quentin's world, just real people on wires swinging real swords at each other. No matter how impressive CGI is, it never really convinces me this stuff is really happening. 'Reloaded's Burly Brawl was hailed as one of the best fight scenes ever - but it just got boring. Neo was obviously never going to get hurt, and all those Agent Smiths were so obviously computer generated.
Then comes a very similar scene in Kill Bill, where the Bride is confronted by dozens of samurai-wielding Yakuzas. The action is frantic (sometimes a little too frantic), amazingly brutal and utterly thrilling. I'm sorry, Matrix nerds, but this scene alone just makes 'Reloaded' look lame, gutless and unimaginative.
Then let's talk about 'Reloaded's supposed cliffhanger. Didn't really work, did it? Well, it wasn't fascinating enough to leave me gasping for the final installment. That's where the Matrix as a whole has gone wrong.
This is the way a Trilogy should work - the first movie outlines the universe of the movie, introduces the characters, and comes to a neat enough conclusion. That way, if it flops, there doesn't have to be another one, and it works as a self-contained movie.
The second part of the Trilogy should expand that universe, introduce more characters, and make the situation more dire for the heroes. That way, when the catharsis eventually arrives in the third installment, everything is so much more joyous. Think 'Empire Strikes Back' - Han Solo's frozen, C3P0 got blown to pieces, and Luke gets his hand chopped off.
Then, if you want to throw a cliffhanger in there, make it simple - a cliffhanger should be an unexpected revelation that at once clarifies things but leaves the audience desperate to find out what happens next. Again, think "Luke, I am your father." Perfect.
That's why the story arc of Matrix doesn't work. The first film starts the series off well, establishing it's mind bending concept, has most of the waffle at the beginning, feels like a whole movie, but leaves the door open for the sequel.
Then 'Reloaded'. What happened there, then? Instead of making our heroe's situation more desperate - I know, let's make Neo even MORE powerful and even MORE invincible. Then let's cop out and let him use his powers in the real world.
OK, so Neo ends up in a coma and those squid things are digging their way towards Zion, but we've spent so little time there and know no-one who lives there, that we don't really give a shit.
Then let's put all the action in one lump in the middle, and have another cop out in the form of the 'Architect', who spouts on for ten minutes of expositionary dialogue. The trick to great writing is 'Show' don't 'Tell', and this isn't it.
So we're left with an overlong, unexciting, pompous, unsatisfactory middle film with a limp cliffhanger, and all of a sudden, the 'Matrix' isn't so cool.
So back to Kill Bill. Volume 1 has a cliffhanger, and it's so simple, but the sudden twist at the end makes February seem a very, very long way away.
What else can I tell you about 'Kill Bill'? Apart from it's visually stunning and lovingly crafted. QT tells everyone he made it for himself. Lots of moviemakers claim to be 'big fans' of a genre and they're trying to make a movie they themselves would want to go and see. But QT meant it, and it shows.
This is Tarantino's world, and he revels in the little flaws. In his world, you can will your atrophied muscles to work again after a four year coma. In QT's little universe, you can take a samurai sword onto a plane. And I've never been to Tokyo, but I'm fairly certain the flight path doesn't take you in about twenty feet above the rooftops.
But these little quirks - including the clearly visible string holding up the model aircraft - are all obviously deliberate, and are part of the flawless film making. There is even a tracking shot in the House of the Blue Leaves that is right up there with 'Goodfellas'. The back story of one of the Bride's enemies, told in anime, is an audacious choice, and a successful one.
Much has been said about the violence, but it's not that bad. Of course, the film is incredibly violent and gory, but it's in context. Curiously, although we all know if someone got their heads chopped off, arterial pressure would fountain blood into the air, but it just looks ridiculous!
Tarantino has created a movie that surpasses his other work. His straightforward revenge plot, told in a convoluted way, is more compelling than the botched heist of 'Reservoir Dogs', and is less flippant than 'Pulp Fiction'. Also, by having his characters talk less, they become more human, rather than just a bunch of cool actors spouting QT's cool dialogue. As usual, his esoteric taste in music cooks up another awesome soundtrack, claiming other people's tunes and making them indelibly his own.
This is Tarantino's best movie to date, and we'll just have to hope Volume Two takes us to those places we're expecting it to...above and beyond, which will truly be an amazing feat. Let's just hope it doesn't turn out to be 'Reloaded'.
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clarebartlett1974 12.07.2004 (12.07.2004)
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Review of Kill Bill Vol.1 (DVD)
Advantages: A Quentin Tarantino film with a great plot, and amusing blood Disadvantages: Some people find it boring, but I don't understand it myself...
![Kill Bill, Volume 1 [DVD] [2003]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78528686.jpg "Kill Bill, Volume 1 [DVD] [2003]")
Nov 18th, 2003
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