Good Film, but Tarantino's Weakest

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2016)

The Hateful Eight is basically Reservoir Dogs in a Western setting, but it takes twice as long to tell the story. The reason for this is that it shows the back story of the situation in great detail unlike Reservoir Dogs. The first hour takes places outside the box and the rest of it in it.
This first hour could have been taken out of the movie though or edited significantly. The dialogue in this first hour supplies a lot of back story for the main characters, but then they talk about this AGAIN and AGAIN as each main character introduces himself to the another new character. Hence, the movie could have just started with the characters in the box.
I adore all of Quentin Tarantino's films, but I have to say The Hateful Eight is his weakest. Even though he is a master of building up suspense, the journey to the suspense takes way too long. (The payoff is great though.) The biggest detractor to The Hateful Eight is that it's not very fun. All of his previous pictures had moments of fun, whether through humor, the alluring dialogue, the style, or the action scenes. Here the tone is bleak throughout and the dialogue is very dry.