Arts & Entertainment
 

'Bill' tops action-packed weekend

Tarantino punishes comic book movie fans in April box office massacre

by Zach Lee
The Daily Cougar

In a weekend stained with blood and several gory acts of vengeance, two characters slashed their way to the top of the season's dead weight in the box office. Uma Thurman and Thomas Jane played Quentin Tarantino's Bride and Marvel Comics' Punisher, respectively, to pile up bodies and empty shells on their way to box office gold.

Thurman helped to catapult Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 2 to the top of the charts, with a buffer zone of more than $10 million to protect the film from No. 2 and The Punisher. In the long-awaited sequel to 2003's Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Thurman's Bride continues on her quest for revenge against her former lover, David Carradine's Bill, crossing swords with Daryl Hannah's Elle Driver and Michael Madsen's Budd along the way.

The Punisher's quest to avenge the deaths of everyone in his family is just as predictable as the Bride's, but the acting is much worse. Jane's character is as hard as his comic book predecessor, but he lacks any sign of serious intelligence. 

The hard-hitting action scenes and creative kills rival classic slashers for originality, but even John Travolta's passable gangster villain falls flat. Hopes that this film would erase permanently Dolph Lundgren's previous attempt at filling the dark shoes of the Punisher have so far been realized as the film made a solid debut at No. 2 with $14 million, but what remains to be seen is the film's staying power.

Cedric the Entertainer pulls in a mediocre $6.42 million in third place for a gross $4.1 million below Vol. 2's first weekend total. Entertainment is one thing, Cedric -- good movies are entirely different.

Hellboy keeps the action alive at No. 4, as Ron Perlman fights to defend Earth against the impending legions of darkness. Children in elementary school keep the new-school-Disney-wannabe film Home on the Range in the respectable fifth place with $5.4 million this weekend, and children of all ages help Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed hang on to No. 6.

The Rock has a bigger action name than Thomas Jane, but his Walking Tall falls down to seventh place in a weekend of box office violence. Ella Enchanted somehow sticks around to come out at No. 8, on top of both Israeli and Texan action heroes.

Mel Gibson's box office juggernaut The Passion of the Christ falls drastically to ninth place as film fans acknowledge they would rather watch someone bleed for personal vengeance than forgiveness of all humankind. 

The action stars of Texas history fall to the barely recognizable No. 10 spot as The Alamo seems to be making its exit before earning $20 million in the box office.

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