Inglourious Bastards (IB): NOT a glorious movie
We just finished watching IB by Quentin Tarantino. This movie received a lot of critical acclaim this year and is Tarantino's most critically acclaimed movie since Pulp Fiction. Being a HUGE Tarantino fan, I was very excited to watch this movie.
I feel like I just wasted two and a half hours. It was not very good. Out of five stars, I would give it two.
The thing that I love about Tarantino is that he creates unique characters and puts them in unique situations. His movies are full of incredible dialogue between these characters in these situations. In IB he succeeded in creating interesting characters, but failed at developing them. But there was not much meaningful dialog between these characters, with the exception of two scenes.
The movie just seemed like it was a rough draft. It was the beginning of something that could have been good, but ended up being below average.
I will rank Tarantino's movies in order of my critical preference:
- Pulp Fiction (*****)
- Kill Bill 1 & 2 (*****)
- Jackie Brown (****)
- Reservoir Dogs (****)
- Grindhouse - Deathproof (***.5)
- Four Rooms (***.5)
- Inglorious Bastards (**.5)
According to me, this was not his second best movie like some critics claimed. It was actually his worst. If any of you are Tarantino fans I wonder if you actually liked IB.
Furthermore, we've been on a wait list to get this movie from Netflix for six months.
Even the best directors throw in a clunker now and then. Academy Award winning directors, Joel and Ethan Cohen, also some of my favorites, once directed a movie called, "The Man Who Wasn't There," starring Billy Bob Thorton. It was in b&w and completely horrible. But they rebounded to win an Oscar a few years later. I hope Tarantino can do that, too.
I dont' know what else to say about it. I'm shocked that it wasn't better.
I'm just a little sad.
The Hater refuses to rate IB on his Hate-Meter like from his previous posts. He says he's just disappointed that it wasn't better, but that he can't actually hate on his Tarantino.
I, on the other hand, have no problem hating on Tarantino films. My take on IB was that it was poorly written and poorly edited. The acting, makeup/costuming, and cinematography were all very good. I know my hate scale is nothing compared to my husband's, but I'd give the whole evening a 9.2 on a scale of 10 for hate. Mind you, some of that hate is directed to the fact that we had to wait so long on a piss poor disappointment... so for the film itself I'll hate on it a 7.6 out of 10 and give it one and one-half stars.
3 comments:
I disagree. I thought the dialogue was well written, don't really know about the editing piece. Because of the protagonist's unified aim, I felt compassion toward them and wanted them to succeed, felt their fear, etc. And in the end, in this fairy tale, they did. Another factor in my bias towards this movie is the fact that I married into a Jewish family and have a Jewish kid. Plays right into my psyche. Either way, excellent review!
I'm always amazed when I like something that Billy Bob Thornton has done, because I think he's an idiot. But somehow, some of his characters, and their dialogue, just grabs me.
He's pretty much the smartest guy on the planet...you might want to listen to him.
Go figure.
I've not seen this one but if it has Billy Bob Thornton, my thinking is, 'it must be good.' I'll have to look into this one.
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