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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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