This isn't a normal movie at all.
I didn't understand most of it, but Tarantino said in a recent
interview that revenge films
don't need much in the way of explanation. Somebody did somebody
wrong, and that person
spends the rest of the film getting even, kinda like Pinhead
and bin Laden, except that Uma
Thurman actually goes after the people that tried to kill her
- not their oil-rich neighbors..
Thurman is a pregnant bride who is massacred at the altar.
Her husband, her unborn baby, the preacher, the guests - all
are way-over-the-top murdered.
"Bill" has dispatched his deadly vipers to kill Uma, but I don't think
they never say why.
Plus, Bill doesn't just want her dead, no, he wants her beaten
to near-death, then shot in the head.
After doing that, the killers only think Uma is dead,
but actually she's in a four-year coma.
It's got the usual Tarantino time-shifting going on, which doesn't
help a guy like me.
Plus, he has dispensed with those cumbersome "laws of nature"
that always get in the way.
During a fight scene (more sword fights than Lord of the Rings)
it's likely that someone
will defy gravity by flying or running up a wall to the ceiling
- things we all do every day.
While in her coma, Uma's body has been rented out for sex.by a
crooked hospital orderly.
While alone, Uma suddenly wakes up and remembers the wedding
massacre. Before she has a
chance to sort it all out, here comes the crook with another
customer to rape Uma's lifeless body.
Of course, she's now alert but faking being in a coma. The crooked
orderly ushers in his latest customer,
who dies a very bloody death off-screen for trying to rape her.
The fun part happens when the orderly returns.
Uma slices the tendon right above the back of his heel, causing
him to fall to the floor. Once on the ground,
Uma positions his head in the door and proceeds to slam that
door again and again into his gonna-bust-open head.
It's so damn funny, it's hard to explain.
After killing her would-be rapist and her "pimp," Uma makes a
list of people she needs to kill.
There are five names on the list, but we only see two listed
victims die in Volume 1.
Her first scheduled murder is Vivica A. Fox, Will Smith's wife
from Independence Day.
Watch out for the Kaboom cereal.
Of course, after her first revenge murder, we see by her list
that she's already killed Lucy Liu,
but that's just more of Tarantino's time-shifting.
This film has the oddest cartoon violence.
Whenever somebody loses an arm, a leg or a head, blood shoots
out like a fire hose.
Whenever someone's head gets cut off, it squirts blood like the
fountain that opens Friends every week.
Much of the movie is visually stunning, such as the fight with
100 evil swordsmen at the House of Blue Leaves.
At one point, the lights go out, and all we see are the silhouette
of Uma cutting limbs off the bad guys with a
beautiful blue background. There were audible sighs at the beauty
of those silhouetted beheadings.
The film closes with Uma giving Lucy Lui the Ray Liotta treatment
in Hannibal.
Financially, it was Tarantino's biggest opening ever.
This half of Kill Bill costs $27.5M, and they made $22 of that
back the first three days.
Kill Bill Volume II will probably do better - critics love this
movie.