I think Tarantino is one of the most over rated Directors in the film industry, sure he has Directed one classic movie with Pulp Fiction (1994) and some of his ideas/screenplays have been made into very good films by other Directors, namely Natural Born Killers and True Romance but I began to see a serious lack of direction at about the time of Jackie Brown.
I saw Inglourious Basterds last night in the West End and was bored to tears. The opening titles, using different fonts and a borrowed exploitation soundtrack gave the game away. This was going to be a disjointed mess and it proved to be so.
Funny but the film reminded me of a FanEdit. So many shots are lifted directly from other movies, such as the last doorway shot from John Ford's The Searchers (1956) being used at the end of the first chapter.
A score of tunes from other movies are used with wild abandon such as Lalo Schifrin's Kelly's Heroes (1970). A dedicated score by one composer would have helped cement the film together. Then inexplicably David Bowie starts a-singing Cat People from the movie of the same name. At this point I groaned out loud at how ridiculous this stupid picture was getting.
Some of the acting is good, especially by Christoph Waltz and Daniel Brühl but other performances are just a joke. Brad Pitt is unconvincing as a leader and begins each sentence with his jaw suck-out but ends each sentence with his jaw back in it's natural position. Mélanie Laurent is completely out of her depth and is dressed like a 1960's beatnik. Mike Myers is simply miscast and the weak Eli Roth, who is given a very BIG entrance by Tarantino, comes across as the absolute opposite to say, the late Charles Bronson, who could easily have pulled off such an extravagant entrance.
The lack of authenticity in production design, uniforms and weapons are the least of my worries. The film sucks arse big-time and if it had been Directed by anyone other than Tarantino it would be seen for the unadulterated mess it is.
Finally, the amazing score Inglourious Basterds has on IMDb 8.6/10 is unintelligible.