Now that I’m 17, I can (somewhat more legitimately) see R-rated movies. (Also, as raph informed me, I am no longer jailbait in Illinois.)
Anyway, I decided to exercise the former freedom by seeing Kill Bill: Vol. 1 which I’ve wanted to see for a while. I haven’t seen any Quentin Tarantino movies before, but from what I’ve read, I have enormous respect for him. Reviews, however, led me to believe that the movie was simply a two-hour exploration of Mr. Tarantino’s foot and blood fetish. I am happy to say that the reviews were apparently deliberately misleading, taking things completely out of context and exagerating them.
There is some violence in the film, but not a lot. Most of it is highly stylized (one fighting sequence takes place entirely in silhouette, others only by implication) and that which isn’t is always done in service of the story, and is amazingly effective in communicating how the characters feel (I twitched violently several times). And the foot complaints are nonsense — there’s a short scene with feet but it makes perfect sense and is hardly gratuitous.
Moreover, the film is stunningly beautiful. The colors are vibrant, the pictures are memorable, and the action is stirring. Combined with the excellent soundtrack and physical comedy, the film is definitely recommended. My only complaint is that the extreme closeups in the action sequences made the larger picture hard to comprehend. Oh, and I wish the second part was out (3 more hours in Feb. 2004).
Later, the whole family went to see Matrix Revolutions. I loved the first movie but was let down by the second. Continuous negative reviews led me to believe that this movie would be even worse, but I thought it was much better, although not as good as the first.
The movie did have some problems. It was too dark visually, abandoning the exciting imagery that made the first so good. Also, it got really bogged down with long Lord of the Rings-style epic battle sequences in Zion and the machine world that weren’t all that interesting, visually or plot-wise.
But at least this time the movie made sense, went somewhere, and was interesting.