Like one of The Bride's lethal sword strikes, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 split audiences right down the middle. Some claimed it gave Tarantino's characters breathing room and emotional heft. Others, with a disdainful flick of a beard, derided the naff natter, pat ending and paucity of gory cut-'em-ups. Funny thing is, they're both right.
Sure, the second instalment boasts Uma Thurman's snappy scenes with Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), her ouch-tastic lady-scrap with Daryl Hannah and grizzly support from Michael Madsen and David Carradine. On the downside, the thin revenge plot is stretched to breaking point and pivots on a maternal twist that, while surprising, throws the whole film off balance. The end result is rather like Hannah's Elle Driver: not dead, but missing a few vital parts.
DVD Extras:
Same applies here. The only deleted scene is an amusing-but-creaky scrap between Carradine and Michael Jai White. The Making Of is a standard 26-minute hot-air piece, with middling footage of Robert Rodriguez's band playing the score live for people who like that sort of thing. As with the film, so with the DVD: don't get your swords up.
