Rating of
2.5/4
Gatsby..."The Great"
Gabe - wrote on 05/11/13
Two things I must admit, 1. I love this book. It truly is "The Great American Novel." 2. I've never seen a film by Baz Luhrmann before.
Now that that is out of the way, wow, what can I say. First, I was quite disappointed in this film. I had extremely high expectations and they weren't even close to being met. I know this is Luhrmann's schtick, but he went way over the top on the production of this film. It's as if he had a million ideas in his head and he said, "Fuck It! I'm gonna use them all!" Bad choice, he needed an editor or at least someone to tell him that sometimes we need to tone things down some.
Now, things I liked, DiCaprio is great. I truly felt that he was Gatsby. Since it's only May, you could argue that DiCaprio deserves some extremely early Oscar buzz. Carey Mulligan is fine as Daisy. And Tobey Maguire is ok as Nick, however, I'm personally just not a huge Maguire fan. Both my wife and I loved the music. Some reviews have said that having contemporary music in the film was jarring, but we kind of liked it. Visually, the film was stunning, the color just pops, but as I stated above, he could've toned it down a little bit. We don't need letters acting as snowflakes falling from the sky and then, suddenly, a passage from the book is formed.
But, what really knocked this down a peg was the tacked on beginning and end with Nick Carraway writing the story from an asylum. What! And I like cheese when done tongue-in-cheek, but the ending to this film clearly was not. Don't have Nick hand-write "The Great" on the cover of his manuscript. That alone docked this film 1/2 star. This is a decent film, but also a disappointing film.
Recent Comments
Alex - wrote on 05/12/13 at 11:02 PM CT
The Great Gatsby Review comment
I am sad to hear this. I will still see it but with low expectations.
Chris Kavan - wrote on 05/11/13 at 06:02 PM CT
The Great Gatsby Review comment
I'm glad the music is good - that's what caught my eye originally on this movie. I have seen a Luhrmann films before and this sounds like more of the same - lots of style but not enough focus. I'll be waiting for a rental on this one, I think - but despite the decidedly mixed reviews, I still am interested in it.
