Expectedly disappointed in unexpected ways

Rating: 3/10 (19 February 2013)

Tarantino seems to have been running out of ideas lately and relies on shock and gore rather than on a good script to make his movies stand out.
I really disliked Inglorious Bastards as, except for two brilliant scenes (the first scene with Christopher Waltz and the dialog in the basement pub seemingly inspired by a scene from Where Eagles Dare), the movie was just juvenile, stupid and just plain disgusting occasionally. Now, Django fares a little better as there is not so much stupidity in the script (and no characters like Brad Pitt and his squad from Inglorious Bastards), but there is little worthy of mention, either.
(SPOILERS ahead) The movie starts on a good foot with Waltz setting Django free to help him identify three former slave farm supervisors. Now, for a western revenge movie, hunting these three guys to pay for what they have done to him and his wife would have been the central plot of this movie. Django would have time to slowly develop his relationship with his German "owner" from distrust to even some kind of friendship (not to mention his weapon skills). Instead, they instantly become friends and Django, seemingly a born gunslinger, kills those three guys on the first farm they visit. The movie drags on unnecessarily after that only to finally switch to a search for Django's wife (who is alive and mostly well, as it turns out, thus nullifying any potential revenge factor). She is located on DiCaprio's farm where Django performs his fake slave-owner character unexpectedly (and illogically) well, but surprisingly, the experienced German head-hunter, who otherwise kills people without a second thought with a mathematically cold logic, somehow fails to hide his shock and disgust of a few (admittedly gruesome) slave deaths. I was at least hoping that it would turn out that he was playing some double game and that he will turn on Django, but that was just wishful thinking. Surprisingly, the cool German fails to keep his cool once more and shoots DiCaprio's character, gets killed and with him what little coherence was there in the movie. After an unnecessarily long and blood bursting firefight, Django is taken alive (why?), but instead of being tortured (why?), he is sold to some miners to face a fate worse than any gruesome death itself (supposedly, as all we have are words by Jackson's character). But, somehow he convinces the miner's men or whoever they were as the movie doesn't bother to explain (nor did I care by that point) to let him go (wtf?) and even give him a gun (WTF?); then he spares no thought in killing them for some reason (why?) and runs back to the farm where previously dozens of armed men were holding guard, but for some reason none remain. He shoots the totally unused James Remar character, plus the unused lawyer and Candy's sister characters while releasing the unnecessary Candy's mistress character. Also, underused Samuel L. Jackson's character is shot (didn't really find him mean or anything, but more like a semi-stupid old fool). Django then shows that he's handy with dynamite, too, and leaves the farm with a cartoon-like explosion in the background (Candy must have been holding a dynamite storage there) and rides into the sunset with his rather bland and unconvincing wife character. The end. Notice how there's so many times I mention the words "for some reason" and "unused", as somehow the movie of some two and a half hours fails to find any space for development of most of its characters or to cater us with some logic behind its characters' actions.
I ended up liking some of the music used and DiCaprio's character - not that it was a memorable character, but DiCaprio did a great job with a lousy script at hand. Waltz was OK, but kind of predictable as his character is rather similar to the character in Inglorious Bastards in his overdone slow and meticulous explanations, but ridden of any menace and thus, any powerful impact. Jackson was good, but his character was criminally limited by the script. Disappointing and very unnecessary. Oh, sounds like my review! Wait..