Minor spoilers contained within - Read at your own discretion
"Remake" seems to be the word on Hollywood's lips of late.
Halloween, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Quarantine (or .rec, as it was originally known) to name but a few. Not to mention the remaking of John Carpenter's entire back catalogue with- putting it more politely than it deserves- results that make you want to shit blood.
It seems that they ran out of films to remake, so they remade World War II.
Thankfully, it's one Quentin Tarantino at the wheel.
I've found that the big QT can be a bit marmite. His fans say they love his verbose, stylistic methods and they way he seems to be in love with his actor's voices. His critics would say exactly the same thing, only with the words like "hate", "overly" and "too much" added in at certain points.
I'll let you put them in where they feel appropriate.
I guess this review will largely hang on whether or not I like marmite.
So, let's make some toast, get a knife and stretch this analogy to breaking point.
Yes, I like the works of Tarantino. I thought Reservoir Dogs was good, but for me his true classic was Pulp Fiction. Never before had characters been so gloriously realised on screen, and never before have so many people wanted to convert to the metric system.
So you'll be surprised, gentle reader, to hear that I hated Kill Bill. It actually bored my kidneys out- I've still yet to find them.
I mean it could be something to do with the fact that I find Uma Therman to be both as attractive and charismatic as a monkey's kneecap, or maybe the fact that it relied too heavily on lazy, nostalgic references to kung-fu flicks I've never seen in lieu of story and character development. But I think it's mainly because, to me, it just didn't feel like a 'Tino.
Don't ask me about Jackie Brown, I haven't seen it. Or Death Proof. They're on my to-do list.
So daddy-o, I think I'll turn this introduction into a comfortable silence and get down to brass tax by starting my review of every anti-Semite's nightmare: Inglourious Basterds. Or I will as soon as I'm quite finished cramming in as many cheesy references as I can.
"I'm aware of what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity."
Col. Hans Landa, over a glass of milk.
It is a gloriously sunny day. We see a French farmer in his shack.
Into his home steps a German officer. We will come to know this man as the Jew Hunter (right).
The German has a friendly face- an easy, charming smile even slinks across it.
We also see what's underneath the cool facade; a cold, ruthless efficiency and unrelenting determination to perform his lethal duty.
His oiled trench coat, black as onyx, brushes against the farmer's honest wooden floorboards. The officer proffers his hand in greeting, as if he is an old friend. They talk, but we do not hear the conversation, we hear the subtext. Through his charming, multilingual tones, Landa says over and over again "I know what you are hiding". From the moment he walks in, we know that we've met a new breed of villain.
From this we can deduce that not only do I love Christoph Waltz' performance, but that if I had a girlfriend we'd be having a long chat about the future of our relationship- particularly the part about the lack of prospects for children somewhere down the line.
Yes, it's a monumental performance and may even get an Oscar nod. It's the film's selling point and it's a joy to watch. I can almost recommend it for his soothing, eloquent tones alone.
... Moving on.
This kind of villain might overshadow any of the heroes in the piece. Thankfully, there aren't any.
"Mah name is Lootenant Aldo Raine, an' ah need me ate soljers."
Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine asking for volounteers... I think.
We all know that bringing down bullies makes for great guilty pleasures. We can all relate to it.
So when you consider the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews (I've heard it described as "rocky, at best") you can imagine that when they start the scalpin' and the maimin' that it truly is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.
So to, when Brad Pitt bursts into rooms, emptying ammunition belt after ammunition belt into Nazis almost as fast as his female costars can tear their knickers off in his presence you won't be disappointed.
Oh wait, you will, because that isn't the film you're going to fucking get.
Yes, that's right, the trailers were complete fiction. Aldo Raine barely even raises his voice, let alone kills anyone. In fact, considering the film is named after them the Basterds get little screen time.
Okay, there are "ate" of them, but you'll only really focus on three. Pitt himself, he's pretty good I guess, although his South American drawl seems to be a little put-on from time to time. Til Schweiger as Hugo Stiglitz, the redemptive Nazi (if by "redemptive" you mean "kills Nazis"- and let's face it, that's good enough.) and one Sergeant Donnie Donowitz.
In fact let me stop to tell you about Donnie Donowitz. For me it was the most pleasantly surprising part of the film.
He is played by Hostel I&II director Eli Roth. I didn't like Hostel, so naturally I let that reflection go onto his acting abilities. But he's excellent.
Okay, not to the level of Herr Waltz- but a charismatic, vicious performance nonetheless. Also, with the best nickname ever: The Bear Jew, seen as a golem by the Nazis for his fury and aptitude with a baseball bat.
Just his youthful looks and muscly, toned bo-
What is with me today?
Now for spoiler/lazy/pace reasons I won't go into the rest of the cast too much. Just rest assured that you won't find a bad performance here, and especially not in Diane Kruger, who finds just the right balance between Sultry and Saboteur.
"We ain't in the pris'ner takin' bidness, we in the killin' Nazi bidness."
Pitt again, and your guess is as good as mine.
Okay, you might have come to see Aldo the Apache butcher his was through Berlin but as the movie progresses you really start to get on board with Tarantino's vision of war. He shows us what a powerful weapon the media can be, and how propaganda can do more damage than even Donowitz's signed baseball bat. It's the art of film as a tool of war. It's when you consider this that you realise the calmer, less shooty film you are watching really starts to make sense.
You still, however, ask the question "What would a Tarantino action movie be like?"- to which the film responds "keep wondering.".
And, going back to an earlier point in my introduction, if this is a remake of World War II then it gets away with it because it actually doesn't take itself too seriously. It's funny in parts, even.
But, it is a decidedly "American" remake. A world in which even the humblest GI can kill Hitler and live the American Dream in a house made of Stars, Stripes and other strange building materials.
I'm sorry if you're American and are offended by that, but before you react please refer to the film Pearl Harbour, then I'll write you a prescription for 100mg of That'sfuckingwhyazine. Unlimited refills.
"We have all of our rotten eggs in one basket."
General Ed Fenech, as played my Mike Myers. Wasn't he a comedian once or something?
It's ironic then, that the part of this film I hate most is a Love Guru-starring Limey git.
If I may go off on a tangent for a moment: Wayne's World was hilarious. But Mike Myers doesn't seem to realise that he was in no way the cause of this. Austin Powers was funny for what it was, but he pissed all over that by stretching a sketches' worth of material over three agonising films, with a rumoured fourth in the works right now.
His screen time is kept mercifully brief.
Strangely for a Tarantino film the weakest part of the piece is the characterisation.
There isn't any.
With the exception of Landa there isn't really a character you can get to grips with. There's no Jules Winfield or Mr White here, just a collection of archetypes. Anyone pining for pointed, naturalistic conversation and settings are going to leave as disappointed as the people who wanted the bullets to punctuate the sentences like commas.
Although in fairness, you can't really talk about Madonna's Big Dick or Five Dollar Shakes when the film is set in 1944.
"He really went yardo on that one!"
Sergeant Donnie Donowitz, on his latest handiwork.
So, the verdict?
Not the film you expected, no matter what you want from it.
It's not his best, but it ranks just under Reservoir Dogs. For any other director this would be the greatest praise they could ever hope to achieve, but for QT himself it's the equivalent of a gold star.
The story is quirky and original. The script, while not as naturalistic as his other works is witty in places and the leads have a great air of charisma about them.
And that Monsieur, is what makes this a 'Tino.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Can't sleep? Me either.
Stave off your inevitable suicide by reading my other attempts at literature.
Extra Punctuation
MovieBob: Intermission
Experienced Points
First Person
Miracle of Sound: Encore
Exploding Barrels
Loading Time
No Right Explanation
Backchat
Drinking Games
Escape to the Movies
Escapecraft
Escapist Podcast
Feed Dump
GinxTV
Jimquisition
LoadingReadyRun
Mahalo
Meatbag and Co
Media Sandwich
Miracle of Sound
No Right Answer
Pro-Gamer Gauntlet
Reviews
Space Janitors
Tales from the Table
The Big Picture
The Escapist Presents
The Retro Show
Trailers
Unskippable
Zero Punctuation
Max Payne 3 Review
Company of Heroes 2
XCOM Enemy Unknown
Black Ops 2
Diablo 3 Review
TERA Review
Firefall Beta Preview
Starhawk Review
Critical Miss
Name Game
Inglourious Basterds
"Remake" seems to be the word on Hollywood's lips of late.
Halloween, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Quarantine (or .rec, as it was originally known) to name but a few. Not to mention the remaking of John Carpenter's entire back catalogue with- putting it more politely than it deserves- results that make you want to shit blood.
It seems that they ran out of films to remake, so they remade World War II.
Thankfully, it's one Quentin Tarantino at the wheel.
I've found that the big QT can be a bit marmite. His fans say they love his verbose, stylistic methods and they way he seems to be in love with his actor's voices. His critics would say exactly the same thing, only with the words like "hate", "overly" and "too much" added in at certain points.
I'll let you put them in where they feel appropriate.
I guess this review will largely hang on whether or not I like marmite.
So, let's make some toast, get a knife and stretch this analogy to breaking point.
Yes, I like the works of Tarantino. I thought Reservoir Dogs was good, but for me his true classic was Pulp Fiction. Never before had characters been so gloriously realised on screen, and never before have so many people wanted to convert to the metric system.
So you'll be surprised, gentle reader, to hear that I hated Kill Bill. It actually bored my kidneys out- I've still yet to find them.
I mean it could be something to do with the fact that I find Uma Therman to be both as attractive and charismatic as a monkey's kneecap, or maybe the fact that it relied too heavily on lazy, nostalgic references to kung-fu flicks I've never seen[1] in lieu of story and character development. But I think it's mainly because, to me, it just didn't feel like a 'Tino.
Don't ask me about Jackie Brown, I haven't seen it. Or Death Proof. They're on my to-do list.
So daddy-o, I think I'll turn this introduction into a comfortable silence and get down to brass tax by starting my review of every anti-Semite's nightmare: Inglourious Basterds. Or I will as soon as I'm quite finished cramming in as many cheesy references as I can.
"I'm aware of what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity."
Col. Hans Landa, over a glass of milk.
It is a gloriously sunny day. We see a French farmer in his shack.
Into his home steps a German officer. We will come to know this man as the Jew Hunter (right).
The German has a friendly face- an easy, charming smile even slinks across it.
We also see what's underneath the cool facade; a cold, ruthless efficiency and unrelenting determination to perform his lethal duty.
His oiled trench coat, black as onyx, brushes against the farmer's honest wooden floorboards. The officer proffers his hand in greeting, as if he is an old friend. They talk, but we do not hear the conversation, we hear the subtext. Through his charming, multilingual tones, Landa says over and over again "I know what you are hiding". From the moment he walks in, we know that we've met a new breed of villain.
From this we can deduce that not only do I love Christoph Waltz' performance, but that if I had a girlfriend we'd be having a long chat about the future of our relationship- particularly the part about the lack of prospects for children somewhere down the line.
Yes, it's a monumental performance and may even get an Oscar nod. It's the film's selling point and it's a joy to watch. I can almost recommend it for his soothing, eloquent tones alone.
... Moving on.
This kind of villain might overshadow any of the heroes in the piece. Thankfully, there aren't any.
"Mah name is Lootenant Aldo Raine, an' ah need me ate soljers."
Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine asking for volounteers... I think.We all know that bringing down bullies makes for great guilty pleasures. We can all relate to it.
So when you consider the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews (I've heard it described as "rocky, at best") you can imagine that when they start the scalpin' and the maimin' that it truly is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.
So to, when Brad Pitt bursts into rooms, emptying ammunition belt after ammunition belt into Nazis almost as fast as his female costars can tear their knickers off in his presence you won't be disappointed.
Oh wait, you will, because that isn't the film you're going to fucking get.
Yes, that's right, the trailers were complete fiction. Aldo Raine barely even raises his voice, let alone kills anyone. In fact, considering the film is named after them the Basterds get little screen time.
Okay, there are "ate" of them, but you'll only really focus on three. Pitt himself, he's pretty good I guess, although his South American drawl seems to be a little put-on from time to time. Til Schweiger as Hugo Stiglitz, the redemptive Nazi (if by "redemptive" you mean "kills Nazis"- and let's face it, that's good enough.) and one Sergeant Donnie Donowitz.
In fact let me stop to tell you about Donnie Donowitz. For me it was the most pleasantly surprising part of the film.
He is played by Hostel I&II director Eli Roth. I didn't like Hostel, so naturally I let that reflection go onto his acting abilities. But he's excellent.
Okay, not to the level of Herr Waltz- but a charismatic, vicious performance nonetheless. Also, with the best nickname ever: The Bear Jew, seen as a golem by the Nazis for his fury and aptitude with a baseball bat.
Just his youthful looks and muscly, toned bo-
What is with me today?
Now for spoiler/lazy/pace reasons I won't go into the rest of the cast too much. Just rest assured that you won't find a bad performance here, and especially not in Diane Kruger, who finds just the right balance between Sultry and Saboteur.
"We ain't in the pris'ner takin' bidness, we in the killin' Nazi bidness."
Pitt again, and your guess is as good as mine.Okay, you might have come to see Aldo the Apache butcher his was through Berlin but as the movie progresses you really start to get on board with Tarantino's vision of war. He shows us what a powerful weapon the media can be, and how propaganda can do more damage than even Donowitz's signed baseball bat. It's the art of film as a tool of war. It's when you consider this that you realise the calmer, less shooty film you are watching really starts to make sense.
You still, however, ask the question "What would a Tarantino action movie be like?"- to which the film responds "keep wondering.".
And, going back to an earlier point in my introduction, if this is a remake of World War II then it gets away with it because it actually doesn't take itself too seriously. It's funny in parts, even.
But, it is a decidedly "American" remake. A world in which even the humblest GI can kill Hitler and live the American Dream in a house made of Stars, Stripes and other strange building materials.
I'm sorry if you're American and are offended by that, but before you react please refer to the film Pearl Harbour, then I'll write you a prescription for 100mg of That'sfuckingwhyazine. Unlimited refills.
"We have all of our rotten eggs in one basket."
General Ed Fenech, as played my Mike Myers. Wasn't he a comedian once or something?It's ironic then, that the part of this film I hate most is a Love Guru-starring Limey git.
If I may go off on a tangent for a moment: Wayne's World was hilarious. But Mike Myers doesn't seem to realise that he was in no way the cause of this. Austin Powers was funny for what it was, but he pissed all over that by stretching a sketches' worth of material over three agonising films, with a rumoured fourth in the works right now.
His screen time is kept mercifully brief.
Strangely for a Tarantino film the weakest part of the piece is the characterisation.
There isn't any.
With the exception of Landa there isn't really a character you can get to grips with. There's no Jules Winfield or Mr White here, just a collection of archetypes. Anyone pining for pointed, naturalistic conversation and settings are going to leave as disappointed as the people who wanted the bullets to punctuate the sentences like commas.
Although in fairness, you can't really talk about Madonna's Big Dick or Five Dollar Shakes when the film is set in 1944.
"He really went yardo on that one!"
Sergeant Donnie Donowitz, on his latest handiwork.So, the verdict?
Not the film you expected, no matter what you want from it.
It's not his best, but it ranks just under Reservoir Dogs. For any other director this would be the greatest praise they could ever hope to achieve, but for QT himself it's the equivalent of a gold star.
The story is quirky and original. The script, while not as naturalistic as his other works is witty in places and the leads have a great air of charisma about them.
And that Monsieur, is what makes this a 'Tino.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Can't sleep? Me either.
Stave off your inevitable suicide by reading my other attempts at literature.