We watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood tonight and it was…underwhelming.
The movie is fine. It’s not bad. But when people are throwing around Best Picture and “masterpiece” talk…holy shit I’d like to smoke what those people are smoking because this FINE movie is neither of those things.
It’s just fine.
The biggest crime it commits is being boring, which it is for large swaths in the first 2/3 of its 3-hour sprawl. The next biggest crime it commits is not having anything clearly to say. There are THEMES in there for sure, but it never ventures out to actually say anything profound or real.
I still enjoyed much of it. The best thing it does is charm. It’s charming, funny in a couple places, mildly suspenseful towards the end, and it’s sweet. It’s easily the sweetest film I’ve ever seen Tarantino make. Hands down. And if you’d told me about this film, I’d have been looking forward to it very, very much because purely sweet isn’t something that Quentin ever really does for more than a couple minutes at a time, and he does that in this movie.
But, damn…it’s still too boring. Zero narrative drive in the first 2/3, and then even in the end, we turn a trick he’s done before and…well, I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it. But you’ll be sitting there and thinking “wait…didn’t we do the same thing in ________?” And you’d be right. We did.
Still, you can do worse by choosing this movie to watch, particularly if you like Hollywood nostalgia, which I do a smidge more than Liz, who similarly was underwhelmed.
It’s a fine movie.
But it’s not Best Picture, and it’s nowhere NEAR Quentin’s masterpiece, my lawd.