BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
I never saw the original of this nor have I read the book. I know it’s a “classic”, but I’ve just not put the time in for it. I knew the short hand of the story though. I don’t know where I picked it up, but I knew the plot and a few of the key characters going into it. This movie ended up being kind of crazy. Baz Luhmann directed the shit out of this movie. It looks outstanding and one of the best visual movies I’ve seen in a long time. The direction and point of view we’re treated to is like a million music videos crammed into one tastefully shot movie. Some would say it’s “over produced” or “it’s too flashy”, but no way! This movie is artistic precision at its best. The look of the movie is about where my praise stops. I appreciated the fact they tried to be unique and score the movie with modern hip hop instead of period piece music. I really do like the chance they took, but I just didn’t like the music choices. I don’t like when movies go with whatever the top 40 songs are at the moment. The contrast of style would have been just as impactful if the used something from Jay Z or Kanye’s back catalogue instead of their surely soon-to-be-forgotten singles of the moment. But like I said, I still liked the risk they took. It added a whole new dimension to the movie. The movie sucked. There I said it. I pussy-footed around it. I brought up the awesome style and the interesting music choice first for a reason. The movie was just bad. The story felt clunky and by all educated accounts did not do the source justice. Leonardo DiCaprio was good in this, but didn’t have quite the magic I’m sure we were all hoping for. Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton and Elizabeth Debicki were all good in their roles but not a whole lot stood out. It was just a bland story with bland acting. If it wasn’t so stylized and artistically put together this movie would have been one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. It was long, dragging, and lame. I just didn’t feel any heart or emotion while watching this. That’s never a good thing. C-
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