Kill Bill 2

Saw it. It's okay, didn't knock my socks off.

Builds more on Tarantino's traditional strengths as dialogue writer. Gets most of its emotional heft from its "Sergio Leone"-type sense of drama (I keep thinking of that interview where Tarantino says back when he wasn't sure what the correct term for the type of shot he was looking for was, he would call it--this specific shot he was looking for--a "Sergio Leone" shot).

Gordon Liu was amusing as the sifu. Daryl Hannah was cute, better than Lucy Liu, I thought. Carradine does well enough--we all know Tarantino's gift for putting past heroes on a pedestal, and making them look good up there, and Carradine shines.

Again, the action sequences--the meat and bones of an action movie--seem, well, lacking. Again, I think he'd have done better to produce and write, and let Yuen Woo Ping (who did the fight choreography) direct.

I'll have to admit, the whole looks better now it's complete...but that only means it DOES look complete instead of (as Vol. 1 looked at the time) being some kind of pointless exercise in borrowed style. Still think it could have been a maybe two hour to two hour-plus movie instead of a three hour one. On the whole, I much prefer Leone.