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User Reviews for: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

schmenky
CONTAINS SPOILERS6/10  5 years ago
_I hope I can watch this again someday, and enjoy it in a different way. But as far as seeing it in the theater goes, it was a mildly enjoyable journey that turned in to an annoying slog, which ultimately culminated in disappointment._

What the fuck Tarantino? No mystery, no comedy, no trademark dialogue, NO STORY! This movie relies on presupposed knowledge too much. I go into movies that I want to see without reading anything about them or watching any trailers. So if the movie takes until the final act to reveal what the mystery even is, and then subverts it within 10 minutes in a ridiculously, unnecessarily violent way, it doesn't make for an enjoyable movie. It was two hours of a red herring (if you know what it's about already), and then a half hour of "Is this movie seriously going to end without tying together any of these useless, boring storylines?"

First act: Tarantino's use of different film stocks, and his decision to start the movie by showing his version of a corny Oldwest show got me very excited for what was to come. During the first act however, he went back to this a bunch of times, and each time it was a little less enjoyable when it only started out as mildly humorous in the first place. the character development, and relationship between Pitt and DiCaprio was fun to watch. Other character development was pretty flat, and the Bruce Lee scene was just dumb. Pretty early in the movie I started to dislike Pitt's character. this obviously would detract me from enjoying him as the pseudo-hero later.

Second act: The Sharon Tate storyline was really starting to get to me. It's been years since I read about the Manson murders, so when I heard her name, I was thinking "that sounds familiar, I think there was something called the Sharon Tate murders. Maybe Brad Pitt is supposed to end up killing her or something." The more they were following Sharon Tate in her daily activities, the more I was thinking that she better be an important part of this movie or else I wasted about 45 minutes watching something that doesn't even matter.


The scene where Brad Pitt goes to the hippie hideout is easily the best in the movie. Even though at that point I didn't realize this was supposed to be a Manson thing, it was still a very intense scene. Had I known that this was a twist on the Manson family, it would have been a little more entertaining. So maybe Tarantino could have done SOMETHING to tell us this instead of just assuming that everyone is gonna watch every trailer and think that every hippie congregation is supposed to be the Manson family. This was the first time I was taken out the movie by the over-the-top violence inflicted on a character while everyone around me was laughing at it. And if you're supposed to think it's funny even if you don't know that they're supposed to be a murderous cult, then I don't know what the fuck is wrong with people.

Final act: I'm sitting in my seat, and all I can think is "this better be one hell of a third act to bring all these boring, useless storylines together." DiCaprio gets drunk and yells at some hippies. Pretty funny. Pitt takes his dog for a walk, and starts tripping on acid. Kinda funny. then for the first time in two hours, these hippie characters (that you're wondering why are even in the movie to begin with) FINALLY say something that shows they have a murderous leader. Then I start getting excited, finally connecting the dots, and thinking oh man this is gonna be a cool take on the Manson murders. And within five minutes I am not only disappointed by the climax, I am incredibly disappointed in my overall experience with the movie.
The hippie characters only deserved what they got in our real universe where they did the actions that they're know for. But in the movie universe, they were not responsible for these actions, and so their punishment was out of the blue and unwarranted. And if you don't know the real life story of these characters, I would expect that you would be disgusted by what happens, and how everybody is laughing around you in the theater. it was jarring in a way that other Tarantino violent scenes are not. he has made some of the most intensely violent scenes, but they are done for drama, for realism, or to get you disgusted with a character. This violence was done for humor, and I felt very out of place in the theater being the only one who was questioning why people are laughing at a dog ripping a guys genitals off, and then a girls face off while they're both screaming in horror. or apparently everybody's favorite was when the girl's face got smashed over and over into a coffee table until there was nothing left of it. everyone laughed the hardest at that part.

Either I missed something absolutely huge that changed my perception of this movie, or Tarantino has made a huge shift in his writing style, and the audience has made a huge shift in what is funny. Two movies ago Tarantino had a guy getting ripped apart by dogs, and it is one of the hardest scenes for anyone I know to get through, now it's funny because they committed murder in a different reality? I don't get it, I don't get the movie, and fuck you Tarantino for giving us two hours of nothing so you can give us 5 minutes of violence. I enjoyed the first time you did that in Death Proof, when it was actually entertaining. It's a real shame to add this movie to his near flawless career.

2 / 2 directing & technical aspect
0 / 1 story
.5 / 1 act I
1 / 1 act II
.5 / 1 act III
1 / 1 acting
1 / 1 writing
1 / 1 originality
0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think

-.5 / 1 misc (wtf?)

6.5 / 10
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Reply by lifeiscrazy
5 years ago
@gddgb Totally agreed. Just wasted 3 hours of my life on this :sweat:
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Reply by MokiNS
5 years ago
@gddgb the worst part is probably that this movie reduces Sharon Tate to a plot device to justify a action sequence
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Reply by schmenky
5 years ago
@mokins yup, and if you are under 30, you probably have no idea who she is in the first place. Which means this movie makes absolutely no sense unless someone tells you what it's supposed to be about before you see it, which is absolutely retarded
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Reply by benjamin122
4 years ago
@gddgb totally agree with your analysis. what the fuck is this movie?!?
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Reply by hostile
4 years ago
@gddgb +1 no use me repeating, already wasted enough time on this one
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Reply by Stardust9876
4 years ago
@gddgb agreed, what the hell was the movie about^^
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Reply by Charlie R
4 years ago
@gddgb Well said. I am in the same boat. I had no idea there was supposed to be any correlation to anything else. The movie just seemed pointless overall and I resent having wasted the time watching it. But it was Brad Pitt and Decaprio so, I gave it a shot.
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Reply by ChuckMCCluck
4 years ago
@schmenky "then subverts it within 10 minutes in a ridiculously, unnecessarily violent way". I didn't have to continue reading to understand that you just don't like Taratino's directing style in general. Unnnecesary voilence is one of the biggest reasons he stands out as a director and what he's mostly known for, he does this in almost all of his movies. You could have not seen any of his most popular movies previously and somehow be suprised by this.
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Reply by schmenky
4 years ago
@chuckmccluck "I didn't have to continue reading to understand..." <br /> <br /> Well said.
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Reply by GonzoBurger
one year ago
@schmenky I've only just watched this for the first time after meaning to for ages, forgot all about it being based on something that occured in real life and don't particulary know too much about those events and completely agree that it seems to rely heavily on you knowing about those things already. <br /> <br /> Saying that I was entertained enough watching the film, I just felt like nothing really happened and I doubt I'll have the urge to ever watch it again. It got to to near the end and like you I thought something was going to happen to link these stories together but it never did and then I read about the real life events afterwards and yeah.. it relies on you thinking you know what's going to happen and then subverting your expectations but if you have no knowledge of that it's just a bunch of unrelated stories that don't really go anywhere.<br /> <br /> The humour thing wasn't an issue for me as I watched it alone so at no point did it occur to me that it was supposed to be funny. I did feel that the final action sequence didn't really fit with the film, I just figured brad pitt character was going overboard because he was on acid but obviously dicaprio then pulls out a god damn flame thrower.
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notalda
3/10  5 years ago
This movie was almost 3h long. And with that it was pretty much 2h30 too long. Even more than Pulp Fiction this is just a random collection of pointless scenes being exploited for Tarantinos fetishes and goal to stuff as much 60ies and 70ies fanboy dreams into his scenes as possible, just for the sake of it. Because people will eat anything out of his hand, even dog food.

There were about three, max. four, good scenes in it. Scenes that you can cut down, put onto YouTube, stripping them from their context and show someone with no clue, and they'll probably enjoy it more than you did cuz they didnt have to sit through 2h30 of boring junk to see it.

DiCaprio nailed his role, he synced very, very well with Brad Pitt.

Margot Robbie was probably the most wasted casting of the century and I take many issues in Tarantinos portrayal of Roman Polanski as a cool, total OK guy.

And I know, people will tell me, "Tarantino writes amazing dialogue, he knows cinema better than anyone else". Blabla. Im sorry. I dont buy it. I can watch gore, sexual innuendos and funny scenes elsewhere, in a more condensed and frankly better fashion.

And yeah, i didnt like Pulp Fiction either, nor Django. But I freaking love Inglorious Bastards and The Hateful Eight, so I don't know. Maybe i like Tarantino in settings that provide no way for him to fulfill his fetishes and daydreams.
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Xiofire
CONTAINS SPOILERS8/10  5 years ago
Long, plodding but exceptionally well made with an explosively "Tarantino" ending, OUATIH is difficult to recommend but enjoyable to watch. Outside of it's Hollywood history lessons and 60's and 70's nostalgia, viewers may be disappointed by the pictures surprising lack of signature dialogue or overt violence that usually comes with Quentins name when attached to a motion picture. But if you put stock in overal production value, clever links/theming through the characters on screen, and sweeping statements about the state of Hollywood both now and then, OUATIH might just be worth the cost of admission.
Personally, I'm still very much a fan of Tarantino's heyday with Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django and Inglorious being up on my favourites. These movies seem to be much more immediately entertaining, while still offering Quentins usual attentitive level of detail and depth. OUATIH offers the depth, but never really pulls out all of the Tarantino hallmarks you've come to expect, so I'm giving it a 7/10.

Edit: I've mused over this movie for 24 hours and I think it's going up a point. Some of it's dialogue is pretty memorable and the themes on show upon reflexion are much deeper and open to interpretation than I initially thought. Definitely going to give this one another spin when it hits streaming services/digital download.

---

Interesting points of note (And thus, spoilers):

All of Cliff Booth's solo scenes are shot like an old western. The long walk to Georges cabin, the watching bystanders, very "old western" inspired filming. In the final scene, it is shown that Cliff is stabbed in the hip. Rick Dalton says, while reading his book on set, that Easy Breezy was the coolest guy, until he hurt his hip. This is an interesting juxtaposition between Cliff and Ricks characters. Rick is desperately trying to be the cowboy that Cliff is living as on the daily.

Rick mentions at the start of the movie, when Roman Polanski pulls up next to him with Sharon in the car, that he could be one pool party away from being in a Polanski movie. At the end of the movie, after roasting the Manson killer in his pool, he is invited into the Polanski residence, which would assumedly lead to him starring in one of his movies. Cool bit of foreshadowing.
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The_W4tcher-deleted-1591337421
CONTAINS SPOILERS2/10  5 years ago
Don't let the impressive cast and director mislead you. This is one of the worst movies I have seen in a while. The acting and filming was pretty good, as you could expect, but the plot was just trash. Nothing happens for the first 2 hours of the movie. Literally, it just seems like a compilation of random scenes that have no continuity or greater story. The characters aren't very developed, and don't even get me started on Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) who is, simply put, useless and brings nothing to the story. As for the last 30-20mins of the film, it's just nuts. It makes no sense whatsoever, is extremely violent and graphic (which was the only interesting part of the film, but was a total contrast to the first two hours and made no sense) and the final ending afterwards isn't really an ending.

Don't waste your time with this movie! It may look good (I thought so too at first), but it's really not. The whole film just seems so pointless, it's hard to understand what the creators where trying to achieve here, or even what the story was about for that matter.
Way too long and way too boring!
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Reply by PorterUk
4 years ago
I appreciate your thoughts on this film. I don't agree with them but I can see where you are coming from.<br /> <br /> Can I ask what you thought of 'Joker'?
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JPV852
/10  4 years ago
Well, the last 15-minutes were great, the first 2.5 hours on the other hand was... uneventful. I have an interest in Hollywood, more from the 1980s though, so some of the slower scenes still kept my attention, but there's no real plot and minimal character development.

That said, DiCaprio and Pitt both give great performances and Margot Robbie of course had her moments, however I could only chuckle during the theater scene when she kicked her bare feet up. Okay, Quentin, lol. **3.0/5**
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