Kill Bill, Volume 1

Quentin Tarantino has finally lost it.

As the opening credits somewhat egotistically proclaim, this is the fourth movie from director Quentin Tarantino, following his earlier cult hits Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997). The six year wait since the latter hasn't been worth it.

The story is a simple revenge plot. Uma Thurman is beaten up, shot, and left for dead on her wedding day (along with the rest of the wedding party); four years later she recovers from her coma and sets out to kill those who tried to kill her. Tarantino's speciality has always been greusome violence, but Kill Bill takes this to a whole new level. Sure, everyone who ends up being beaten, stabbed, sliced or mutilated by Thurman deserves it, and sure, the violence is integral to the plot (in fact, it is the plot), but despite this much of it felt gratuitous and I had to look away from the screen on a number of occasions.

The fight scenes were well choreographed and there were moments of humour, such as when the young daughter of one of the women Thurman is trying to kill comes home in the middle of a knife fight between her mother and Thurman. The switches between colour and black and white and the telling of the story out of chronological order, although both unnecessary, also served to add some style, as did the insertion of the Japanese anime-style cartoon midway through.

But whereas Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were both stylishly done, most of the time Kill Bill just felt stylised. The geysers of blood whenever someone lost a limb to Thurman's sword - a frequent occurrence - seemed ridiculously OTT and no airline would ever have let her take a sword as carry-on luggage. I couldn't work out whether I was expected to take this seriously or not. I assume not, but then what was Tarantino's point? I couldn't work it out.

Kill Bill was originally intended to be released as a single movie but when Tarantino couldn't get the running time below three hours, the studio decided to split it in two instead. It's certainly not going to do it any harm at the box office - anyone who was planning to see the film anyway will go see Volume 1 because it's a Tarantino movie. But the film isn't interesting enough or the story complex enough to justify two films and I have to wonder how many people will go back for Volume 2 next year. I saw the film with four friends from work (Mandy refused to go!) and they all said they'll be giving the second part a miss. So, I think, will I.

6/10