Tarantino wallows in blood and carnage, and delivers the first disappointing movie of his career

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2015)

Tarantino has always been known for his outlandish violence, his offensive dialogue, and his inappropriate story lines. However, like a true filmmaker, he has used these devices towards his own strengths, crafting nuanced and complex movies that just so happen to have a lot of blood. But with "The Hateful Eight," fittingly, his eighth movie, Tarantino instead abandons these complexities, and instead gives us a fairly simple indulgence in violence and masochism.
I won't summarize the plot, as we're on IMDb, and judging by how you're on the user reviews, you have a general idea of what the movie entails.
THE GOOD
The film is loaded with Tarantino's signature hypnotic dialogue, and the performances are all outstanding, chief among them being Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who has been nominated for a Golden Globe for her venomous, hate-filled performance. The cinematography, at least for the first twenty minutes or so, is breathtaking in its gorgeous snowy vistas and the rough, mountainous terrain. Even when the film moves into the stagecoach, the film looks beautiful and fittingly claustrophobic, as the camera always seems to frame characters perfectly during rousing monologues.
THE BAD
Even if the dialogue is your typical Tarantino fare, it seems like it could have used some editing this go round. Tarantino has always been one for indulgence, but this movie takes it to new, and often exhausting heights. This is a two hour movie stretched perilously over three, and the dialogue suffers for it. Characters babble on at times, and the same themes are rehashed throughout. While "Django" used racism towards thematic relevance and a social observation, "Eight" instead uses it as a means to reach the violence. It has no meaning, no gravitas, outside of being a means to an end.
I also got the sense that this movie is violent simply for the sake of being violent. After bloated, almost boring hours of hearing these characters talk, the blood comes fast and hard, and it seems like Tarantino is simply using this movie as a statement. He's saying, "Yes, I am violent. Just watch this." The movie seems like an indulgence on his part. It often doesn't reach farther than being a blood-soaked romp.
OVERALL
Is it a bad movie? No, of course not. It's probably impossible for Tarantino to make an inherently bad movie at this point in his career. But what it is is an excuse for a proved, controversial director to pride himself on his excesses, whether it be through tiresome talking scenes, unneeded language, or excessive blood and carnage. It's Tarantino being Tarantino, and it's more than likely that his fans will lap it up. But for everyone else, the movie is an excuse for a director to pride himself on what he does, even if that means creating a movie without purpose or any sense of timing or humility.