Tarantino's Worst Picture to Date (As of November 2017)

Rating: 1/10 (24 November 2017)

When "Django Unchained" first came out in 2012, it was instantly hailed as Tarantino's magnum opus and as one of the most thought-provoking and brutally honest films about slavery in recent memory. It won 2 Academy Awards and made a whopping 425mil at the worldwide box office.
Suffice to say, I saw this film back when it first came out and thought it was terrible. I re-watched it the other day on TV and thought it was just as bad if not worse, than when I first saw it in 2012.
This is easily Tarantino's worst movie (yes, even worse than the abysmal Death Proof) and provides absolutely ZERO insight into the horrors of American slavery. I found absolutely nothing of value in this picture and couldn't grasp how it was heralded as such a masterpiece by virtually everyone and their mother. I especially can't comprehend how ANYONE in their right mind can consider this joke of a movie to be saying anything worthwhile about slavery or even the times in which slavery was common practice. There was no message, no point, no realism of any kind, no authentic human emotion, nothing at all. The only real "message" that Tarantino tries to deliver (if anything) is that black people have the right to kill all white people because of slavery and stuff. Yep. This is some pretty revolutionary thinking right here. Give this man an Oscar, oh wait.
Aside from the completely cartoonish and irresponsible take on a real period in history, my other issues with the film are as follows:
Plot/Characters. There was very little plot to "Django Unchained" and what plot there is, was nothing special. In fact, the story was so linear and straight-forward that it was insulting. The entire first hour of the movie is boring exposition with very little if any, character (or plot) development. Django barely speaks. He doesn't emote whatsoever. He magically develops the ability of an expert marksman practically overnight. He doesn't behave like a slave (former or otherwise) in any way, shape or form. Dr. Schultz is equally bland in that he's annoying and smug. Never develops from there and he's not even interesting to begin with. To add insult to injury, he and Django have absolutely no chemistry. Yet, these two characters make up the ENTIRE first hour of this movie. It is mind numbingly dull in every which way.
Only when we get to the introduction of Calvin Candie, played by Leo DiCaprio, does the movie actually become slightly more interesting. Despite playing a one-note and thoroughly unoriginal bad guy, DiCaprio manages to bring a new level of intrigue to his character which makes the movie semi-watchable. All the scenes with DiCaprio are the best of the movie and that is only because of DiCaprio's great acting chops, not Tarantino's writing or direction. But when DiCaprio is killed off at the 2hr. mark, the movie goes off the deep end and fast. It's like the first hour all over again except more blood and no Christoph Waltz. We get nonsensical character decisions like shipping off Django to some random Aussie miners instead of torturing and killing him like any sane person would, pointless blood baths in mansion with terrible and unfitting rap music, random white guys getting gunned down left and right, Tarantino's pathetic cameo, more random white guys getting shot out of nowhere and in the testicles, and a very stupid ending that could only be dreamt up in the head of a five year old. Django became the only remaining major character for the last 40mins of the movie and yet he was the weakest and least interesting character out of all (even Samuel L. Jackson's character was more interesting and that's saying A LOT). Thus, the first and third hour of this movie is atrocious. The middle section with DiCaprio is only kind of watchable because he is such a good actor.
With no discernible plot, no interesting characters to speak of, bad music choices, boring narrative structure, overlong and useless scenes (like KKK scene), complete lack of realism, awful ending, zero insight into slavery, and pitiful Tarantino Aussie cameo, I am truly at a loss as to where all the accolades and praise come from in regards to this "movie". Even The Hateful Eight was better than this tripe and that made less than half of what Django did.
Oh, I forgot to mention how annoyingly often the "n word" (can't say the full word on this site) is thrown around in this movie. It clearly was not meant to portray "realism" as there is none of any kind in this movie. Which means, QT is behaving like a child who uses bad words all the time simply because he can. Between this movie and The Hateful Eight, he really needs to stop embarrassing himself.