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Kinsey (2004)
Bill Condon’s probing, fascinating biopic of Indiana University sex pioneer Kinsey (Liam Neeson) could not come out at a more important time. Kinsey lived in the Dark Ages of sexuality and fought against what he saw as “morality disguised as fact.” Kinsey broke barriers studying the science of sexuality and gathered nationwide statements to amass the first thorough book on what’s under the sun and what’s going on under the sheets. Today, we live in a splintered world where people listen to information that affirms their beliefs, and tune out contradictory evidence even if it’s fact (look at the latest report on abstinence-only programs dishing out highly erroneous information). Kinsey railed against this dangerous line of thinking. The man was no saint and had issue comprehending some of the more complicated human emotions. Kinsey is exceptionally well acted and Neeson gives a career best performance. Kinsey is fearlessly graphic in its frank discussion but also enormously intelligent. The fact that conservative groups are actually protesting it shows that Kinsey’s work is far from over.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Maria Full of Grace (2004)
No other actress stood out to me this year as 23-year-old Catalina Sandino Moreno. She plays the movie’s Maria, a Colombian woman who agrees to carry 60-something condoms filled with heroin in her gut to the United States. The first half of the film is unjudegmental and nerve-racking, especially when Maria gets snagged by U.S. customs. The second half revolves around Maria trying to land on her feet in an unfamiliar land. The greatness of Maria Full of Grace relies on debut writer/director Joshua Marston framing his story like camera is an invisible voyeur. The film suggests that Maria is only one of thousands that have turned into drug mules to make ends meet or seek better lives. Maria Full of Grace is startling, immersive, delicate and quietly touching as Maria rediscovers the promise of the American dream.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Village (2004)
When saying director names you can play a fun little game of word association. Someone says, “George Lucas,” and things like big-budget effects, empty storytelling, and wooden dialogue come to mind. Someone says, “David Lynch,” and weird, abstract, therapy sessions dance in your head. The behemoth of word association is M. Night Shyamalan. He burst onto the scene with 1999’s blockbuster, The Sixth Sense, a crafty, moody, intelligent thriller with a knock-out final twist. Now, though, it seems more and more evident that while The Sixth Sense was the making of M. Night Shyamalan, it also appears to be his undoing. His follow-up films, Unbreakable and Signs, have suffered by comparison, but what seems to be hampering Shyamalan’s growth as a writer is the tightening noose of audience expectation that he kowtows to.
With this in mind, we have Shyamalan’s newest cinematic offering, The Village. Set in 1897, we follow the simple, agrarian lives of the people that inhabit a small secluded hamlet. The town is isolated because of a surrounding dense forest. Mythical creatures referred to as Those We Dont Speak Of populate the woods. An uneasy truce has been agreed upon between the creatures and the villagers, as long as neither camp ventures over into the others territory. When someone does enter the woods, foreboding signs arise. Animals are found skinned, red marks are found on doors, and people worry that the truce may be over. Within this setting, we follow the ordinary lives of the townsfolk. Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the daughter of the towns self-appointed mayor (William Hurt), and doesnt let a little thing like being blind get in the way of her happiness. She is smitten with Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), a soft-spoken loner. Noah (Adrien Brody), a mentally challenged man, also has feelings for Ivy, which cause greater conflict.
Arguably, the best thing about The Village is the discovery of Howard. She proves herself to be an acting revelation that will have future success long after The Village is forgotten. Her winsome presence, wide radiant smile, and uncanny ability to quickly emote endear the character of Ivy to the audience. She is the only one onscreen with genuine personality and charisma, and when shes flirting and being cute about it you cannot help but fall in love with her. And when she is being torn up inside, the audience feels the same emotional turmoil. I am convinced that this is more so from Howard’s acting than from the writing of Shyamalan. She reminds me of a young Cate Blanchett, both in features and talent.
It seems to me that Shyamalan’s directing is getting better with every movie while his writing is getting proportionately worse. He has a masterful sense of pacing and mood, creating long takes that give the viewer a sense of unease. The first arrival of the creatures is an expertly handled scene that delivers plenty of suspense, and a slow-motion capper, with music swelling, that caused me to pump my fist. The cinematography by Roger Deakins is beautifully elegant. Even the violin-heavy score by James Newton Howard is a great asset to the film’s disposition.
So where does the film go wrong and the entertainment get sucked out?
What kills The Village is its incongruous ending. Beforehand, Shyamalan has built a somewhat unsettling tale, but when he finally lays out all his cards, the whole is most certainly not more than the sum of its parts. In fact, the ending is so illogical and stupid, and raises infinitely more questions than feeble answers, that it undermines the rest of the film. Unlike The Sixth Sense, the twist of The Village does not get better with increased thought.
Shyamalan’s sense of timing with his story revelations is maddening. He drops one twist with 30 minutes left in the film, but whats even more frustrating is he situates a character into supposed danger that the audience knows doesn’t exist anymore with this new knowledge. The audience has already been told the truth, and it deflates nearly all the tension. Its as if Shyamalan reveals a twist and then tells the audience to immediately forget about it. Only the naïve will fall for it.
Shyamalan also exhibits a problem fully rendering his characters. They are so understated that they dont ever really jump from the screen. The dialogue is very stilted and flat, as Shyamalan tries to stubbornly fit his message to ye olde English vernacular (which brings about a whole other question when the film’s final shoe is dropped). Shyamalan also seems to strand his characters into soap opera-ish subplots involving forbidden or unrequited love. For a good hour or so, minus one sequence, The Village is really a Jane Austin story with the occasional monster.
The rest of the villagers don’t come away looking as good as Howard. Phoenix’s taciturn delivery seems to suit the brooding Lucius, but at other times he can give the impression of dead space. Hurt is a sturdy actor but can’t find a good balance between his solemn village leader and caring if sneaky father. Sigourney Weaver just seems adrift like shes looking for butter to churn. Brody is given the worst to work with. His mentally-challenged character is a terrible one-note plot device. He seems to inexplicably become clever when its needed.
The Village is a vast disappointment when the weight of the talent involved is accounted for. Shyamalan crafts an interesting premise, a portent sense of dread, and about two thirds of a decent-to-good movie, but as Brian Cox said in Adaptation, ”The last act makes the film. Wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit. You can have flaws and problems, but wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit.” It’s not that the final twists and revelations are bad; its that they paint everything that came before them in a worse light. An audience going into The Village wanting to be scared will likely not be pleased, and only Shyamalan’s core followers will walk away fully appreciating the movie. In the end, it may take a village to get Shyamalan to break his writing rut.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Door in the Floor (2004)
John Irving is one of the most accomplished and popular fiction writers of our times. His pulpy, unconventional, and compassionate novels have translated into many films with varying degrees of quality (World According to Garp, good; Cider House Rules, okay; Simon Birch, dreadful). The Door in the Floor is an adaptation of his novel, A Widow for One Year, but it only adapts the first third of the novel. This time around will the absence of quantity directly shape the quality of an Irving adaptation?
The plot for The Door in the Floor almost sounds like something you’d see late at night on Cinemax. Eddie (Jon Foster) is a teenager learning what it takes to be a writer. He becomes an assistant to Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges), a giant in the world of childrens literature but a playboy at home. Eddie spends the summer at Ted’s quaint cottage and is instantly smitten with Ted’s estranged wife, Marion (Kim Basinger). Theirs has been a loveless marriage ever since a tragic accident killed their two sons. Both are handling the grief in their own ways. Ted has become bitter and takes his anger out on his manipulation of other women, notably a neighbor (Mimi Rogers) who poses nude for his paintings. Marion has become insular and turns into a stone whenever the accident is mentioned.
Eddie tires of his glorified chauffeuring duties for Ted and his mistress. He spends his lonely days fantasizing about Marion, including masturbating to the image of her clothes. When Marion accidentally stumbles into this embarrassing situation, she not only calmly apologizes but lays out additional pairs of clothing for Eddie to get his kink. This opens the door for Eddie to engage his fantasy, and embark on a deflowering tryst with Marion. Ted’s reaction isn’t one of anger or resentment but more of a job well done. It is around this time when we realize that Eddie looks remarkably like her two lost sons.
The film’s best moments are not the colorless, tepid tryst between Eddie and Marion, or the broader comic moments with Teds assault on tact; oh no, the best moments are when anyone onscreen shares time with Ruth (Elle Fanning), Ted and Marion’s precocious 4-year-old daughter. She’s a tad demanding, like insisting to know where every picture of her family remains, but comes across as adorable without stepping over into cloying. Her interaction with Bridges is wonderful, her wide-eyed questioning is sweet, and her acting is much more authentic than her sister, the more seasoned Dakota Fanning (Man on Fire). Hopefully the Fanning family has learned some dos and donts from the Culkin family.
Bridges performance is amazing. He bares more than just his backside in this film. The role of Ted is very meaty, and Bridges is the perfect actor to sink his teeth right into it. Bridges is alarmingly coy, blending a disarmingly comic roly-poly ability, as well as a brooding, stinging anger barely masked by ego and affability. I cannot imagine anyone else stepping into Ted’s shoes and delivering a better performance. Bridges’ tortured and droll work may be Oscar material.
Basinger’s performance is equally amazing. Amazingly bad, that is. Her character is supposed to be shattered by the loss of her sons, but Basinger plays the role so heavily intoxicated by grief that Marion becomes nothing more than a walking ghost. She’s so zombie-like for the entire film, that her performance could be rivaled by a coma patient. For some reason unbeknownst to me, ever since winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1997, Basinger has yet to follow with a really good performance.
The Door in the Floor is Jon Foster’s real big break as a young actor. His previous roles amount to little, including Kevin Costner’s son in 13 Days and the vitally integral Gas Station Cashier in Terminator 3. Some awkwardness is apparent in his rise to larger material, but Fosters apprehension serves his character best, like a dinner scene between him and Marion where he tells a bad joke to break the ice. Foster’s performance is a bit bland, but that’s because his character is more of a transparent adolescent fantasy.
Poor Mimi Rogers, a.k.a. Mrs. Tom Cruise Number One. She’s a capable actress, and a fine-looking woman, but she’s been given such a small one-note character that it seems almost exploitative that such a well-known actress spends the majority of her time with her robe around her ankles. A late scene involving her violent hysteria at being dumped by Ted and it is meant to be comic but it seems more like a fizzy tantrum. All this and she gets the dubious notoriety of having a drawing of the most sensitive part of her anatomy projected in glorious widescreen.
By now an audience is more or less used to Irvings mix of slapstick and grief, of pathos and situational humor. The Door in the Floor follows this tried-and-true recipe and provides a healthy amount of entertainment for an audience. It can effectively make an audience laugh and supply knots in their throat at separate turns; however, in the harsh light of day, if you strip away at The Door in the Floor you’ll find that most every character is self-involved, curt, closed off, and just plain unlikable. Ted is a jerk. Marion is a zombie, and not so great a mother. Eddie is bland. The only real character worthy of empathy is Ruth.
Now, movies dont necessarily all have to have likable characters, and in fact some of the most interesting and memorable characters are unlikable, but for a family melodrama its important to feel for their grief instead of feeling their grief. If you cant feel for the characters then youre just watching without any baited interest. Many films can make you feel bad by watching someone on hard times, but it’s a true accomplishment if you feel the character’s personal pains (and somehow the films of Lars von Trier accomplish both). Theres little investment beyond the surface level of amusement. So, The Door in the Floor is amusing,but it struggles to be anything beyond because of the limitations of its characters. For some, a movie that provides surface-level amusement from polished actors is good enough, and in some instances Id agree.
Director Tod Williams (The Adventures of Sebastian Cole) also served as the adapter of Irvings dense work. Williams knows a thing or two about family melodrama and the denial of guilt, and he keeps the pacing brisk and the laughs at an even pace. Williams’ best decisions are on the small visual notes he hangs on, like a stunning, visually alluring final image. The story is a bit uneven in tone, thanks to Irving’s eccentric source, but Williams saves his narrative whammy for the very end, and Bridges brilliantly delivers the backstory we’ve been holding our breath for.
The Door in the Floor is a solid, if surface-level enterprise in the exploration of guilt and mourning in a family setting. Bridges gives an amazing and memorable performance that helps make you forget about the rest of the films somewhat lackluster acting. Fans of Irving’s works will likely be taken back in pleasure, and fans of adult melodrama will not likely walk out disappointed. The Door in the Floor has glimpses of something more but settles for being a well-acted, nondescript affair.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Before Sunset (2004)
Richard Linklater knows a thing or two about the poetry of language. Few can write conversations better than him, and with Before Sunset, the sequel to 1995’s Before Sunrise, we witness an entire film built around one couple’s conversation. Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke return as older, wiser versions of their Sunrise characters. They stroll around the avenues of Paris chatting away so casually, so beautifully that it’s like birds chirping. Linklater and his actors have forged a romance through a romance of language, and an audience can’t help but be smitten. Before Sunset will not be for everyone because it is as advertised: 80 minutes of people talking uninterrupted (it put a friend of mine to sleep when we watched it), but for those people that enjoy sumptuous conversation, Before Sunset will cast a spell on you.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
The first two film adaptations were huge hits, but were derided by some as being too loyal to the books that it stifled the creativity. Now, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is out and its the first film to deviate from the books. How will Potter nation take the news?
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is entering his third year at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is also getting older, getting angrier, and learning more and more about his parents. Hes on alert that the murderer, Sirius Black (played the fabulous Gary Oldman), has escaped from Azkaban prison and is out to get Harry. Black had a hand in the deaths of Harrys parents, and now it seems hes looking to finish what he started as a follower of Lord Voldemort. Harry relies on his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint), Hermione (Emma Watson), and a kindly new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher named Lupin (David Thewlis) to conquer his fears, his burgeoning hormones, and to face Black when the time comes.
The best decision the Harry Potter producers made for this chapter of the series was in getting a new director. Alfonso Cuaron finally infuses the Potter series with a sense of visual life. Instead of Chris Columbus’ stubborn admiration of his fake opulent world, Cuaron keeps things fluid with a constantly roving camera and long takes. For the first time in the series, you can argue that this Harry Potter film looks and feels like its own actual movie. Gone is Columbus annoying penchant for displaying everything in close-ups. The film also benefits from some new realistic exteriors and dressed-down attire, ditching the school uniforms. Theres also a new cinematographer, so instead of Columbus dull amber glow, the series takes a gratifying turn toward the menacing, with an emphasis on dreary blacks and silvers.
The best improvement of all, however, was in getting away from the apparent slavish loyalty to the books. The third book is the longest of the three but the third film is the shortest; 15 minutes shorter than Sorcerer’s Stone, and 25 minutes shorter than Chamber of Secrets. Thank God. At the rate they were going I thought the next book, Goblet of Fire (700-some pages), was going to be like 9 hours.
So, under Cuaron’s guidance, Prisoner of Azkaban eschews the unnecessary plot elements and details fans will grumble over but moviegoers couldnt care less over (Quidditch?). Cuaron’s film may be heavy with exposition, but it never talks down to its audience. The result is a movie trying to be a movie and not trying to cram in as many details of the world as possible so fans wont have their feathers ruffled.
The young actors of Hogwarts have definitely been struck by puberty, and it has done their acting a world of good. Radcliffe will never be an exceptional actor but here he presents new and interesting dimensions to Harry demonstrating his arrogance and tempestuous anger. Tom Felton, who plays the snarky blonde-haired Draco Malfoy, appears to be maturing into a ganglier Macaulay Culkin. The one actor that truly seems to have a bright future, though, is Emma Watson. You cannot help but love her whenever she’s on screen and she seems to be developing into a fine actress.
The most notable addition to the adult staff in the film is Michael Gambon, replacing the late Richard Harris as Hogwarts headmaster, Dumbledore. Gambon turns the character from a kind-hearted grandfather type to more of an aging hippie but it works. Emma Thomson also appears as some sort of psychic professor, teaching students to read tea leaves; however, her entire role seems superfluous unless it impacts future installments (I have not read a single book). Once again, Alan Rickman rules all and needs to get more time in these movies. I don’t know how, but it needs to happen. Thewlis is the most welcomed addition in his pivotal role as Professor Lupin and delivers some of the more dramatic scenes of the film with radiance and ease. He creates a lovely father-son relationship with Harry that supplies Azkaban with a nice sense of compassion. Oldman is similarly great but unfortunately he shows up so late into the film that he seems terribly underused. There is a scene late into the film, where Thewlis, Oldman, Rickman, and the great character actor Timothy Spall share a scene. I never thought it would be a children’s fantasy series that would finally unite all these talented British stage actors but I’m thankful for it nonetheless.
Prisoner of Azkaban is the darkest tale yet, and Harry Potter works best when things get scary. The nightmarish element design creates a wonderful sense of dread, and Cuaron deftly handles his young characters dealing with rage and death and, scariest of all, budding hormones. Theres even a sly nod to Cuaron’s steamy coming-of-age film, Y Tu Mama Tambien (it involves a three-way hug between our trio of kids).
he effects of the film are beautiful and greatly add to the entertainment value of the film. The Dementors, cloaked flying guards of Azkaban prison, are terrifying to look at, and their leitmotif of chilling the air when they are near makes for some great visuals and ominous moments. I got actual goosebumps the first time they arrived on-screen, and then when I saw this film a second time, fully knowing the story, my skin still crawled when they arrived. Perhaps the greatest addition to Harry Potter‘s special effects bestiary is the Hippogriff, which resembles a combination between an eagle and a horse. It is a gorgeous creation and worlds better looking than the three-headed dog from the original film. It also provides one of the more breath-taking moments of the film, when Harry goes soaring across a lake on the back of the Hippogriff.
Having said all this, yes Prisoner of Azkaban is the most exciting and visually alluring film of the series, also its darkest, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed with the central storyline. Most people will love it, especially fans of the books, but after walking out of the theater I could not help but wonder if the film had a climax at all? It really kind of didn’t. There was no sense of real story momentum and the middle had some definite moments of drag. The last act of Prisoner of Azkaban is exactly like Back to the Future Part 2: time-travel, correcting the future, not running into your past selves. This is not a good comparison. So while the characters are getting more interesting as they get older, this plot doesn’t really hold up very well. It almost feels like a preface of whatever events will come in the fourth film.
Prisoner of Azkaban is an interesting watch. I am told it deviates the most from the book and it manages to generate a considerably darker and scarier atmosphere than its predecessors. For my money, any changes are good, as films are about ADAPTATION and not copying, so dispensing with subplots and details is A-Ok with me. But how will the die-hards react? Im sure youll hear plenty of grumbling all over, but Cuaron has injected needed life into this series and presented an idea of what it can grow to be. So, while I think Prisoner of Azkaban has a superior visual sense, pacing, and adaptation; I also feel the story may be the weakest we have been told. I can only imagine what the outcry will be among the fan base when Goblet of Fire is released November 2005 as one film.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
I must confess a giant moment of geekery: for a month or so I waited patiently until the Wednesday before the new disaster opus The Day After Tomorrow opened so I could finally say, The Day After Tomorrow opens … the day after tomorrow. Im surprised the marketing department didn’t beat me to that punch.
Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is an environmental scientist concerned about global warming trends and the chaos they could cause. He tries to alert government officials to these dangers but is met with a cold shoulder. Jacks son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), is traveling to New York for a school quiz tournament on the slightly less grave mission of earning the affections of one of his classmates. Somewhere between the establishment of these two stories, all hell breaks loose. Jack and another researcher (Ian Holm) share data and discover that the world is headed toward a gigantic climate shift, a new Ice Age. While the world is crumbling, Jack is determined to reunite with his son, trapped in New York.
The special effects of The Day After Tomorrow are indeed awe-inspiring, but once they finish the viewer is left with a story that is, shall we say, overcast. Unlike director Roland Emmerichs other disaster films with aliens or giant lizards, a cataclysmic climate shift is not a beatable foe, so the story is left without resolution. It’s kind of hard to vilify the weather.
What do you do once the world starts another Ice Age? Not much besides keeping your butt from freezing off. So this means that the crux of the after scenes revolve around Jack trying to reunite with his son. Jack tells his son to hole up where he is and, cue heroic music, he will come find him. Sure. Does anyone stop and question, Why? I know why Jack treks, on foot no less, from Philadelphia to New York, but it isn’t even necessary. His son and their friends are fine where they are and the only severe threat they face is when the giant frosty eye of the storm looms overhead. Quaid’s character has no opportunity to assist them during even that scene. Im sure someone thought it would be a touching display of a fathers love for his son, but its really just winds up looking foolish. He tells his son not to move, then disobeys his own advice to venture out. Nothing of significance happens because of Jack’s journey. He might as well have stayed home and read a book.
The acting of any disaster flick is really confined to yelling and … panting, I suppose (which could also accurately describe the acting prowess of the late night programming of Showtime). Quaid is a sturdy hero but seems to look ten years older than normal. Gyllenhaal is one of my favorite young actors (I adore Donnie Darko) and, to his credit, he does a suitable job of running around and yelling.
Perhaps the funniest thing in The Day After Tomorrow is a Vice President who refuses to listen to environmental concerns that looks a heck of a lot like our current VP, Dick Cheney. The timeliness also extends to a somewhat witless president who, when faced with a crucial decision, turns to his VP and asks, What do you think?
The necessary scenes of planetary and civilization destruction are first-rate in the film. Emmerich is our premiere master of laying waste to the world, particularly New York City. Emmerich keeps our view of the carnage mostly restrained to long shots where we can witness the full magnitude of devastation he is trying to put forth.
The weather effects are top notch, especially a series of tornadoes that devastates downtown Los Angeles. There are some beautiful visual moments, like seeing thousands of birds migrating from impending doom, or a final image from above of the iced Statue of Liberty. Tomorrow also has a clever moment late in the film when the frost storm hovers over New York and forces characters to outrun advancing … frost. Its not as stupid as it sounds. And, as per usual in disaster flicks, Mother Nature always knows where to strike – landmarks. How else does one explain the precision of taking out the Hollywood sign?
For a good hour, The Day After Tomorrow is great escapist entertainment. The scenes of destruction are riveting, and the moments leading up to them have great suspenseful pacing. The film’s climax is its half-way point, which is never a good sign. After all the floods, rain, snow, twisters, and everything Mother Nature has in her arsenal, we are left with characters scrambling around running from … wolves. Going from tidal waves to wolves is not exactly an increase in suspense.
There is a hilariously awful moment in the film involving Sam’s wife, played by Sela Ward. Sela is a nurse at a hospital watching over a child with cancer. She refuses to leave him alone and waits for an ambulance to arrive, because, for some reason, the cancer kid can only be transported by ambulance. It’s just distasteful and dumb that this storyline even exists: brave woman determined to stay by the side of cancer child.
The Day After Tomorrow is an exciting diversion that doesn’t know what to do with itself after all the big money shots are spent. Its like a balloon once the air is all out. Perhaps the creators should have consulted any prior warning about stranding an audience in a story that no one cares much about. It’s worth seeing, but it’s also worth leaving after Mother Nature unloads her goods.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Spider-Man 2 (2004)
No other movie had higher expectations than Spider-Man 2 and no other movie met and trounced those expectations than director Sam Raimi’s high-flying webslinging sequel. Spider-Man 2 was that rare sequel that excelled in near every way. The action sequences were lively and highly exciting, but what made Spider-Man 2 so thrilling was its success in building strong emotional characters. After all, how many superhero films are written by the writer of Ordinary People? (One wonders what he would have done with Catwoman) Alfred Molina, as Doc Ock, made for a great formidable foe and brought surprising humanity to the dastardly part. Spider-Man 2 was a momentous crowd-pleaser that also dazzled the hardest critics. It reaffirmed exactly what a summer popcorn film can make us feel.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Punisher (2004)
It’s probably a bad omen when the co-writer of Armageddon makes his directorial debut (J.J. Abrams is a fluke). The Punisher is one of the ugliest movies I have ever seen. The action isn’t exciting; it’s pat, poorly shot and grotesque. The story isn’t interesting. It’s not enough that The Punisher has his family killed; he has to have his ENTIRE family killed during a reunion. When he does exact his vengeance, the film stops an audience from engaging with the characters and pushes them away by callous misstep after callous misstep. This is just sadistic, ugly, and over-the-top while simultaneously being entirely, sadly predictable. By the time John Travolta gets dragged by a slow-moving car through a field of explosions, you may have thrown up in your mouth, swallowed it, and thrown up again.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
When last we left The Bride (Uma Thurman), she had reawakened from years of coma, traveled to Japan to acquire the finest sword ever created, and crossed off two names from her list of those marked for death in the name of bittersweet vengeance. O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Lui) and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) fell under the hand of The Bride in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Now, the only members left of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS), the group our heroine was once a part of, are the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen), and the titular ringleader, Bill (David Carradine).
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 takes a very sharp tonal shift from the previous film. Kill Bill, Vol. 1 was a head-spinning orgy of blood and stylized carnage, and it could be argued that its actual plot was wafer-thin. But it seems with Kill Bill, Vol. 2 that Tarantino had answered every critical concern about the first film before they were even brought to his attention as the two films were shot and cut in one grand effort. This film has a much more genial sense of pacing and numerous moments of drawn-out monologues, a far cry from the breakneck pace and terse dialogue of its forerunner. Fans of the relentless hack-and-slash of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 may be disappointed that this film lacks the chopped limbs, geysers of blood, and senseless, yet immeasurably thrilling, slaughter. In fact, whereas the body count for a lone sequence of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 may be in the fifties, Kill Bill, Vol. 2 has three total murders. It is the quieter, more adult half of this revenge opus. Kill Bill, Vol. 1 was an homage to chop-socky grindhouse Japanese films. Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is Tarantinos homage to spaghetti Westerns and their languid pacing and showdowns.
The acting is superior to what you would expect from a revenge movie.
Thurman has always been as good as her director, and under the hands of a master like Tarantino she excels. In Kill Bill, Vol. 1 she was a hurricane of rage and an unstoppable warrior. Here we see the human being inside the warrior’s armor, and she performs with amazing assurance and a ragged, raw delivery. When she’s crying on the floor, face and body red and strained, aching, you believe everything this woman does and is capable of doing.
Carradine, with his gaunt features and face like leather, gives the standout performance of the film. Whereas Bill was an unseen menace in Kill Bill, Vol. 1, with the final installment he becomes fully realized as both a figure of terror but also one of great tenderness. He has a lengthy speech about Superman, masks, and the mythology of comic books that is spellbinding. Madsen gives a fine performance steeped with surprising pathos. He’s the only former DiVAS member who feels remorse for his actions at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel that triggered The Bride’s rampage. A large subplot displays Budd’s current life slumming it as a bouncer at a sleazy strip club and getting verbally berated by people he could easily kill. You come away with the idea that its Budds version of penance.Madsen mixes his remorse with sadistic grit, like when he gives The Bride a choice between a flashlight or a can of mace, and this is before he buries her alive.
Hannah seems to relish every moment as the one-eyed right hand to Bill. There’s a scene where a character is suffering from venomous snakebites thanks to her and she sits down and reads a list of Discovery Channel-esque information she looked up on the Internet about the snake and painstakingly copied onto a notepad. She performs with such gleeful insincerity that it is hard not to start to like her for being so good at being so bad.
Perhaps the person that steals the movie though is Gordon Lui, who plays the cruel master Pai Mei that teaches Thurman all her moves. He has eyebrows like cotton balls and a long, whispery beard he loves to flick around. Its a shame that this hilarious character is not in the film longer. Kill Bill, Vol. 2 also boasts one of the greatest child performances I have ever seen. The actress that plays the daughter of Bill and The Bride has such a natural quality to her acting that it is amazing she isn’t coming up with her lines, reactions, and movements on the spot.
So does a longer, slower, talkier concluding half mean that Kill Bill, Vol. 2 plays it too safe or loses any of its steam? Hell no. Tarantino fills in all the rough spots and unanswered questions from the first film, and the result is drawing the audience further into the story.
We open the film with another perspective of the events that took place at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel that left a wedding party dead, and a bloodied, pregnant Bride shot in the head. We also discover how The Bride became the deadly warrior she is, why she chose to leave the business of hired killing, why Bill reacted in the extreme manner he did, and we even learn to our delight how Elle Driver lost her eye. The result of knowing the full story are characters, which in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 were more archetypal than living and breathing, that have become fully fleshed out, rounded, and incredibly complex figures full of remorse and vulnerability. The Bride and Bill transcend their descriptions as adversaries, and their relationship becomes more intensely complicated when mommy returns home to find her daughter still alive.
Despite all this fancy talk about character building, Kill Bill, Vol. 2 does not disappoint in action and thrills. A fight between The Bride and Elle inside a cramped trailer may be the most brutal, bone-crushing fight sequence I have ever seen between two women. Every strike that connects breaks something, be it furniture or bones. The final showdown between Bill and The Bride is a fitting and satisfying end for both warriors.
Tarantino’s concluding half of this story long in gestation is a highly entertaining, stylish, thrilling, engrossing, eye-plucking good time. There is so much to talk about. This is the first film since, perhaps, Gladiator that I have seen at the full-price theaters three times. In total, I have seen the Kill Bill saga five times in theaters, and I find something new and rewarding every time. Tarantino has given the masses a masterpiece and everyone should take the opportunity to see it.
Nate’s Grade: A
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