Friday, January 4, 2013

Movie Review - Django Unchained

As I always like to do after seeing a good movie, here is my review and recommendation of a new movie release:

Going into Django Unchained, I understood it was supposed to be funny but fairly gory.  After seeing the movie, I can agree that it was very funny but far from gory.  Bloody?  Yes.  Gory?  Not a bit.  When someone uses the word "gory", I imagine gross-looking open wounds and body parts lying all over the place, but this movie had none of that.  Hell, at one point a character is blown up with dynamite and Tarantino didn't even have blood splatter all over the place like he did in every other fight scene in the movie, which by the way was awesome.

As for Tarantino, Django Unchained contained most of his usual stuff - great story telling, 10 minute scenes that would only be 30 seconds in any other movie, writing in his own cameo, and odd dialogue.  However, this was the first Tarantino movie that I can remember that is told in a 100% linear fashion.  In other words, it didn't start somewhere and then jump all over the place in time and I kept waiting for a flashback or flash-forward, but it just never happened.  And for how Django ranks amongst other Tarantino flicks, I would say it falls somewhere in the same league as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill: Vol. 1, so that is some high praise.

Next up, we have to discuss the cast.  Did you know that Tarantino had Will Smith in mind when he wrote the part of Django?  Well, it's true and I couldn't be happier that Smith turned it down because Jamie Foxx was incredible and I don't think Will Smith could have played that role nearly as well (Will Smith's angry face isn't very convincing and Jamie Foxx's is).  Also, Christoph Waltz was his usual awesome self and it was refreshing to see him play a good guy instead of a villain for once.  And speaking of the villain, Leonardo DiCaprio did an absolutely great job as the evil southern plantation owner.  If he doesn't get an Oscar nomination, I will be shocked because this character was the complete opposite of what he usually plays.  But the best performance of the movie was definitely Samuel L. Jackson (did you know he is 64 years old?). You will have to see the movie to understand how awesome he truly was in this flick.  Also, there was a cameo by Jonah Hill and the scene he was in might have been the funniest scene of the whole movie.

Lastly, I'm going to go ahead and give this movie the "Most Times The N-Word Was Said in Movie History Award".  Seriously, they drop the N-Word like it is going out of style.  Then again, it was set in 1858 when owning slaves was the norm, so that was just how people probably talked back then (I did not research this).  In any case, they used it so often that you just became numb to it after awhile, kind of like 90's rap.

I am going to go ahead and suggest that if you like Quentin Tarantino movies and you are on the fence about seeing it, then I highly suggest you go and see this movie.  Like I said, it was probably his best film since the first Kill Bill (the second sucked compared to the first one) and that is saying something because that movie was really good.

Fart Rating (out of 5):  4.25 Farts

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