A tough critic: The classic Quentin Tarantino movie Stephen King called “blah”
Quentin Tarantino has attracted a dedicated following since the release of his first film, Reservoir Dogs, significantly changing the landscape of 1990s cinema with his stylish and intensely violent movies. Blending humour with brutality and paying homage to bygone years and eras of cinema, Tarantino has been labelled an auteur, utilising a similar style throughout all of his films.
With Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Tarantino really put himself on the cinematic map, making a bold entrance into the medium with darkly comic torture scenes, unconventional narrative set-ups, and witty, quotable dialogue. You can’t merely forget a Tarantino movie – those distinctive characters and shocking acts of violence are embedded within your mind long after.
Since the ‘90s, he has made a series of largely acclaimed movies, like Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. He even turned the latter into a book, harking back to earlier days when films would frequently receive novelisations. The filmmaker is dedicated to his craft, harnessing an insane amount of knowledge about cinema, making him well-equipped as a director.
Still, that doesn’t mean everyone is a fan of his films. When Reservoir Dogs debuted, Wes Craven, the director of The Last House on the Left (which became a video nasty), walked out of the cinema because of the ear-slicing scene. Yet, one of the most famous people who openly criticised a Tarantino film is Stephen King. The author is quite the cinephile, so he naturally went to see Kill Bill upon its release in 2003.
The movie, starring Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu, remains one of Tarantino’s most iconic projects, bearing obvious influence from martial arts movies. Kill Bill follows Thurman’s The Bride as she seeks revenge on the assassination team she was formerly part of, which betrayed her while she was pregnant. After waking up from her attempted murder, The Bride sets out to kill her previous associates, finally coming head-to-head with Liu’s O-Ren Ishii in Japan.
Praised for its thrilling plot and non-stop action, Kill Bill grossed $180.9million, leading to the release of Kill Bill: Volume 2 the following year. King was not impressed by Tarantino’s first foray into the martial arts genre, though, writing an article about it for Entertainment Weekly.
Calling it a “blah movie,” King wrote, “You probably saw some good reviews of it, possibly even in this magazine. Steve says don’t you believe it. Steve says you should remember that movie critics see movies free. Also, they don’t have to pay the babysitter or spring 10 bucks for the parking. They’re thus apt to rhapsodise over narcissistic stuff like Kill Bill, which announces itself as Quentin Tarantino’s Fourth Film, ain’t we la-di-da.”
Clearly, King thought the movie was too self-indulgent, calling it “dully full of itself.” Several critics have pointed out that Thurman’s character is not as dimensional as Tarantino wants us to believe, and King seems to be in agreement. “Uma Thurman tries hard, and she’s the best thing in the movie, but in the end she’s stuck playing a woman who’s a label instead of a human being: She is, God save us, the Bride.”
He thought the jokes were “tiresome” and the violence exhausting, criticising the fact that the film doesn’t even have a solid ending since there’s a sequel we have to wait for. “We’re just told to stay tuned for more — more karate kicks and throws, more falsetto birdy-sounding battle cries.”
King surmised, “It’s certainly well made, and the story garners some of our interest as it goes along, but dull is still dull, isn’t it?” Revisit the trailer below.
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