I love John Cusack; I had fun watching his friendly face onscreen.
Unfortunately, this movie failed to deliver on its promises. I was
expecting a thriller, and though it had the requisite plot twists and
turns, it never managed to nudge me to the edge of my seat. Also,
there were one or two irritating loose ends — for instance, what
happened with the MP3 player?

I watched this the other day. At times it looks like Tarantino is
making an homage to some set of movies I’ve never seen. At other
times it appears that he’s trying to make a new kind of epic. For
instance, there’s a kind of ironic counterpoint to the sanitized
violence we see in most action flicks; instead Tarantino goes for
maximum gore and mutilation. It’s got his trademark sense of humor
in it (I’m thinking of Uma’s car), and there’s a long anime sequence
in the middle that is a sort of interesting digression from more
normal movies.

So, he’s trying. But I found the dialog severely annoying, the
violence disturbing — I’m squeamish and covered my eyes for a good
part of the movie — and at times it seemed like this movie wanted to
be Ghost Dog but couldn’t quite take itself seriously enough.

In the end I wasn’t that impressed. I suppose I’ll see the second
one, just to find out what happens. But I won’t be seeing the first
one again.