I saw it in a matinee on opening day and wrote up a spoiler-free review. If you'd rather be surprised, then skip the rest of this post.
The theater was decently packed for the matinee: easily half the seats were filled, though unfortunately some of the most vocal people were sitting in my vicinity. Luckily, they shut up once the movie got underway, which was good because their voices carried too well. Fricken deep-voiced, bull-brained idiots. >.<
The movie itself got off to an interesting start with a monologue, some flashbacking and a bit more story detail thrown in to refresh collective memories. It took another interesting turn not long afterwards, but there were no real surprises after that. There was less in the way of copious, gouting buckets of blood and more in the way of '*wince* Ow, that musta hurt' moments; there were also a couple of 'eeew, gross' disgust-type bits. The best part was the last tribute to/poke of fun at HK martial arts films; the actor playing opposite Uma Thurman in a personal history flashback scene also had a role as one of the Crazy 88s in Vol. 1, and he was great at both. David Carradine, while generally a little disappointing for being generally one-dimensional, had the best line in the movie, which doesn't come up until near the end. There are a few funny snippets, but only a few.
All in all, there was more story and less action in this film, which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- except that it dragged in a few places, which made the movie flow less well as a result. Don't get me wrong: the story cleared up some things, but it ended up drawing out the scenes just a little too long; I spent most of the film waiting for the characters to Just Get On With It Already. There's something extra after the credits, but I saw only a second of it before the theater cut it off.
My friend Nancy thinks they should never have split up the film, but when I think about it, maybe it's a good thing it was: the second half would have diminished the fun of the first because the pacing was, comparatively speaking, so much slower. My favorite of all the characters and scenes is
definitely Gogo (Kuriyama Chiaki); nothing and no one comes remotely close to her.
If nothing else, go see it just to find out how it all ends.
