Film 2h30min of movie for 10min of climax. (Minor veiled spoilers)
And everything could be set up with an equal, if not greater amount of cathartic glee with half hour, this leaves 2h of movie that are roughly unnecessary. This review will attempt to analyse the piece without delivering major spoilers.
I'm a fan of Tarantino's movies and this is, without a doubt, one of the worst movies I've seen of his. Everything that Tarantino is known for is either absent or placed in such a way that it becomes irrelevant. There are no great scenes with superb dialogues, one of the things he is known best for (and when you consider that this is a movie about 60's movies, this becomes a downright crime), the long one-shot scenes that previously were used either to elevate the tension or establish a moment are wasted in overly long and slow scenes that lead nowhere.
In fact, sadly, when you reach the climax of the movie and look upon at the 2h30min that led to it, you realize that it made pointless nearly everything established before. Characters that appeared and took more than half an hour of silent exposition are rendered obsolete, cameos stop making sense and tension that was built between characters that lead to what may be called the only thing remotely closer to 'emotional' are nullified by logical conclusion. All in order to set another piece of a 'changed history' moment. And what makes everything even worse is the fact that the movie is slow.
Unbearably slow.
You'll get tired of seeing Brad Pitt driving, you'll get tired of seeing a female character wandering around to no end making things that won't advance the plot in any way. The only soundtrack available is basically what the characters are hearing in the background, which makes everything worse. I've seen people defending that the true focus of the story is Leonardo's character's transition between acting styles, which would be fine... except that the moment of revelation isn't treated with the apotheosis effect that it should, it's treated as a silent 'upgrade' and promptly tossed to the corner and never spoken about again, you just see the 'results' of his change (again, wasted moment for an awesome conversation). Others defend that the true protagonist of the story is the city itself and the 60's movie industry, that's all fine and dandy, if they focused on it instead of shifting slowly between pieces and changed the pacing, giving some aerial shots or people gushing over the cinema itself. Overall 2.3/10m
Film Tarantino's first love movie
Fans of Quentin Tarantino are understandably divided over Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. If you come into this movie expecting the Dark Comedy, Gorn, and Rule of Cool of his more infamous movies, you're bound to leave this disappointed and confused.
Everything makes sense, however, once you realize that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Tarantino's take on a
romanticlove movie.There are two loves running throughout Hollywood; the first, and most obvious, is the bromance between Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. These two guys stay together through thick and thin, whether it's the drops in Rick's moviemaking future or Cliff's blacklisting from the stunt community. The bulk of the movie is watching them go through their days helping each other and helping themselves, two buddies to the end without a moment of doubt or disagreement between them. There are no dramatic swerves here, but there don't need to be — we follow these guys, watch their trials and tribulations, bonding with them as we go. Jules and Vincent can only dream of having a friendship as solid as what Rick and Cliff effortlessly demonstrate here.
The second love in this movie is between Tarantino himself and the Golden Age of Hollywood
. From the neon lights of the theater marquees to the sweeping vistas of long-gone Los Angeles landmarks, from the eye-grabbing landshark cars to the teen girls in their skimpy outfits, this movie is a nostalgic love hug to a more vibrant, more innocent, more hopeful era of moviemaking — it is to cinema what La La Land was to Los Angeles. The numerous "filler" and "pointless" scenes that some people complain about are here for the audience to join Tarantino in savoring this bygone time; this is the work of a creator who's able to indulge himself, daring to use that power to bare his soul to the audience and truly share his love of cinema with us.
Somewhere out there is a world where the Manson Family was revealed to be a bunch of scraggly losers who were curb-stomped by a B-grade cowboy actor, his stuntman buddy, and his dog. In that world, Sharon Tate was left unharmed, Rick Dalton revived his career as a Real Life Badass, and Hollywood entered its second Golden Age in the '70s. Sure sounds like a Fairy Tale ending to me.