dullurd

By far, the most interesting and educational film I've seen this year. The lack of narration and interviews makes it a much more immersive and less preachy experience than it could have been (though there were one or two stylistic choices that I felt were needlessly heavyhanded). Visuals are gorgeous from start to finish, and it shows aspects of Chinese culture that I was completely unaware of prior to watching.

Over-the-top sappy, overwrought, and boring. I saw this with my girlfriend and her mom. The three of us have pretty different movie preferences, but an hour into this, we all looked at each other and decided to leave. Honestly perplexed why no other reviewers appear to feel this way.

I like its ambition, but it's a pretty big misfire for two reasons, I'd say. One big problem is that the film can't seem to make up its mind whether you're supposed to care about the characters or laugh at them, and tries to have it both ways. The very stylized dialogue and shtick-y performances made it impossible for me to see the characters as real people, so all of the emotional beats rang false. Second, it really goes off the rails in the third act. The plot turns are pretty contrived and hard-to-swallow. Rather than having a bunch of events-for-the-sake-of-being-eventful, I wish the story had zoomed in more on Eisenberg's character, who remains frustratingly opaque throughout.

After seeing its sky-high metascore, I eagerly grabbed a ticket for this, and it was quite a letdown. Pros: Dialogue and acting were decent, and the aethetics were often very beautiful. Cons: Wasn't scared a single time. No nifty twists, too much filler, didn't care about the characters.

I dearly love Tarantino. I love Inglourious Basterds (and Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs, and I'd give all his other films, including Death Proof, at least an 8). But I found this one really disappointing. The key element missing for me was quality QT dialogue. There are very few memorable conversations in this. Whereas Pulp Fiction/Inglourious Basterds, two of my favorite movies of all time, were full of brilliant oddball unconventional wisdom and clever turns of phrase, I can't remember a single good line from Django, and I just saw it an hour ago. Much of the humor is hackneyed, much of the attempts at insight are banal. Furthermore the weak dialogue caused me not to care about the characters, and the climactic scene is troublingly forced and unemotional. Really hoping this is just a blip for QT and not a harbinger of his subsequent work.

Super cool, fun movie. I found the writing and acting to be particularly impressive considering the genre. Most notably, one character's relationship with an abusive parent is portrayed with tenderness and realism. The comedic moments are legitimately funny and the action sequences are quite thrilling. Strong recommend!

As a horror fan and avid reader of this site (and believer in its methodology) I was expecting this to be a thoroughly enjoyable flick. Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way. The good: It's really well-shot, very beautiful at times. The bad: Everything else. The first act of the film is overly drawn out and boring. When it finally gets to the horror stuff, it starts **** more. The scares in the film are really lame and cliche. Lots of shots of Radcliffe nervously approaching doors/doorways. The overall plot is a very lazy, super hackneyed retread of the classic vengeful ghost garbage. I didn't care about the two-dimensional, boring characters. And it's topped off with an extremely lazy, stupid, crappy ending. Really disappointing. If you want to watch a good recently-made horror movie, rent Paranormal Activity or [REC] and save some money.