Inglourious Basterds felt like a missed opportunity for Tarantino to do something sober and slow-boiling, an opportunity he declined in order to maintain his brand of quirk. Django Unchained in contrast feels like Tarantino pursuing every opportunity, as his string out of events takes us through more aspects of slave trade and antebellum Southern culture than would be expected…. and using those set-pieces and contexts to wax out every last joke and bloody choreography he can, sometimes even the same joke a couple-three times. The result is surprisingly balanced but overly long, as every moment a character has freedom to develop shines but we get bogged down in Too Many Endings Syndrome and sequences like the five minute long KKK joke that could be cut entirely.

–DB