Tarantino went way over his head with this one

Rating: 7/10 (16 August 2019)

Up until the opening credits started rolling, I completely forgot that this was a Tarantino film. That being said, I went into this movie with my sister and enjoyed way a lot more than she did apparently. The fact that I enjoyed it, however, does not mean that I thought everything about it was great/perfect. Allow me to elaborate.
Pros:
1. The acting - All I really have to say about it is that Pitt and DiCaprio have astonishing chemistry with one another and play their roles spectacularly well.
2. The western scenes - The way each of those scenes were directed made me keep wondering whether or not those scenes were part of a movie-within-a-movie, and that is exactly what I loved about them.
3. Bruce Lee - I don't know if I can describe the scene with him without giving anything away, but here it goes: the man gets his ass kicked by Brad Pitt's character.
4. The scenes with Brad Pitt and that one Manson girl - Nothing much to say about it except that I found Margaret Qualley absolutely adorable as that character.
5. The scenes with the child actress - All I can really say is that I flat-out loved the scenes with Leo DiCaprio and that little girl. I especially loved when he asked her if she's 12. To which, she corrects him saying that she's 8; at that moment, I was like, 'Wow, you've grown up fast.'
6. The makeup - I can barely wait for this film to get nominated for best makeup design, because Timothy Olyphant and Dakota Fanning were almost completely unrecognizable; the same can be said for Margot Robbie as well.
Cons:
1. The run-time - I'm not the first one to say this, but this film was a lot longer than it needed to be; nothing more to it, I guess.
2. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate - Now, let me be perfectly clear and say that I in no way dislike her as an actress; I have seen I, Tonya after all. The problem I have is that she (besides playing the real-life Sharon Tate) had no purpose in this whole film whatsoever. The movie does, however, lead us to believe something bad is going to happen to her, only to trick us later on.
3. The climax - Most (if not, all) of you may know the tragic story of Sharon Tate: she was a Hollywood actress who's life was cut short by few of the Manson family members. That being said, Tarantino decides to completely alter that tragic night and has the stuntman go all one-man-army on each of them; he even has his dog give him a hand for most of it. Now, the fact that this is a Tarantino film, the climax is incredibly violent and brutal; watching a young girl (psychotic or not) get viciously attacked by a dog, screaming out in agony before getting blow-torched to death (while another one gets gets her face smashed in repeatedly by a fully grown man) does not equal as entertainment for me. I honestly thought that it was downright unnecessary and felt added in purely for shock value. I know I'm making it sound like I was rooting for the Mansons the whole time, but hear me out. During their amount of screen-time, we never see any of them murder a living soul, which is why having (three of) them get killed instead seemed and felt unneeded.
4. The ending - It shouldn't be surprising that Sharon lives in the end. I, on the other hand, have very mixed feelings about it. I mean, there is insulting our intelligence ... and then there's THIS. On the one hand, it was nice to see Leo finally interact with Robbie (again) near the very end. But on the other hand, it makes her presence in the whole film entirely pointless. Like I said earlier, the woman does nothing in this film other than go to a movie theater only to watch "herself" on the big screen. I've read many people praising both that scene and the ending, which, for me, goes to show little respect they have for actual event. I mean, come on, Quentin, there are fan-fiction writers who show more respect for real-life tragic events like this.
All in all, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is a good film, just not a great one, but it would've been if not for the ending. And in my honest opinion, Tarantino should stick to writing new materiel instead of using his own fantasies to tamper with real historical events. So I rate this film 7.5/10 stars.