Inglourious Basterds Early Reviews Plus Three New Clips

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is one of the more highly anticipated movies of 2009 and fans have been eagerly awaiting word on how the film will stack up agaisnt Tarantino’s past catalouge of greats (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) and not so greats (some would argue Death Proof).

Inglourious Basterds premiered at Cannes this past week and a few lucky sons-of-guns around the blogosphere were able to snag a seat for the screening. We’ve got the first reviews back from those that saw Tarantino’s self-proclaimed “masterpiece”, plus three new clips from Inglourious Basterds to help you judge for yourself.

In an effort to rest your eyes from all that “reading stuff”, here’s a video review of Inglourious Basterds. The film was reviewed by Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter and if you want to know how I feel about that guy you can click here. Otherwise, here’s what Mr. Honeycutt had to say – but be WARNED his reveiw does contain SPOILERS!!!

Here are a few more snipits from a few of the early reveiws of Inglourious Basterds. Thanks again to Slash Film for compiling a nice list for me to mooch off of:

Empire’s Chris Hewitt : “Rather brilliant. Every bit as idiosyncratic as the spelling of its title, it’s a wonderfully-acted movie that subverts expectation at every turn. And it may represent the most confident, audacious writing and directing of QT’s career.” … “The performances are superb across-the-board.” “[Christoph Waltz] may be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Oscar nom” … “Some of his Grindhouse flourishes – large captions stamped on screen, the usual flirting with structure and chronology, offbeat musical cues (a David Bowie track shows up at one point) and the sudden introduction of a hip narrator (Samuel L. Jackson) – may irk some” … “certainly very talky,”

Total Film’s Sam Ashurst: “Not only did I love every minute, if the French projectionist wanted to cue it up and roll it again from the start, I would have sat through the whole film again, with the biggest grin on my face. This is Quentin’s best film since Jackie Brown. It might even be his best film since Pulp Fiction.” “[Eli Roth is] the only weak link I could spot” … “Tarantino dialogue at its best” … “QT’s magpie eye has never been sharper, swooping down on Italian cinema and plucking the very best shots, framing and music to create a deserving homage to the spaghetti westerns of my youth.”

Total Film’s Jonathan Dean : “Much of Basterds felt flat, with a schizophrenic spaghetti western style that blasts Ennio Morricone at the start and then David Bowie later on.” … “Enjoyable? Sure. But for 2 hours and 40 minutes it’s a big ask to keep brattishness exhilarating.” … “well worth watching and admirably ambitious and single-minded,” … “Inglourious Basterds will split viewers.”

Twitter Buzz:

FirstShowing : Inglourious Basterds was frickin’ awesome! This is the WW2 movie we’ve all been waiting to see!! Lots of talking scenes, but still great! Diff than I was expecting, but I think Tarantino is back in action, hell yea!! The action is kind of minimal, but that’s Tarantino for you, lots of talking, but great story, I loved it!

empiremagazine: Glorious Basterds, as it turns out… very, very good, subverting expectations at every corner. Should make Michael Fassbender a star – C It’s utterly unpredictable. When it looks like going one way, it twists the other, & the ending… so audacious it provokes giddy laughter. Christoph Waltz, as Jew Hunter Hans Landa, is a revelation. Shoo-in for Best Supporting Nom. Looks like evil Rob Brydon too. All performances are uniformly grand. Pitt’s hilarious. And the film has two or three scenes that rival anything in QT’s career for tension.

For an extensive list of early reviews for Inglourious Basterds you can go here.

All in all kind of a mixed bag that definitely realigns my perceptions about what to expect from this film. I thought Inglourious Basterds was going to be like a 2.5 hour version of The Bride vs. The Crazy 88 sequence in Kill Bill. Apparently it’s a lot more Resevior Dogs than that – which is cool for me (I love that film), but may irk a lot of other people with the sheer amount of talking going on.

However, don’t let the critics tell you what’s what! Take a look at these three new clips from Inglourious Basterds and judge for yourself:

The dialogue in the second clip alone (plus the dismemebered Nazi bodies strewn everywhere) are enough to let me know that I will probably enjoy Inglourious Basterds. I’m one of those people who loves Tarantino dialogue so much that Death Proof was a highly enjoyable film for me to watch (liked it more than Planet Terror). I know this is not the case with everyone – but hell, I don’t have to go see Inglourious Basterds with the haters. I’m going to dig this film.

What about you? How do the early reviews from Cannes make you feel? Did the new clips do anything to reverse that opinion?

Inglourious Basterds hits theaters on August 29, 2009.

Sources: Slash Film, The Hollywood Reporter & Trailer Addict