Not since The Dark Knight Rises had I been so excited to see a movie in theaters as I was to see The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is my second favorite school book I've read (I liked Fahrenheit 451 a little more), and thought Leonardo Dicaprio would make an amazing Gatsby. However leaving the theatre I felt a little cheated, that they were so close to making a great movie from a great book, but Baz Luhrmann, the director, made some choices that I personally didn't like as much. That said, it was an entertaining movie that had its strengths as well.
What I disliked about The Great Gatsby was how "HD" it looked. The movie was shot so clear it looked fake. When at George and Myrtle house/town, the people of the town were trying to be portrayed as "dirty", but they didn't look dirty at all, more like clean people put on shirts with mud on it. Another complaint of mine was that Luhrmann tried to make it too hip. The music featured Jay-Z, Beyonce and many more well-known modern musicians. While it was terrible, I feel Luhrmann missed a great opportunity to include the awesome sounding Jazz of the 1920's, which would have been a better fit. I don't remember if I just remembered the book wrong, but I also thought the main character Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire) was a little more awkward then he was in the movie, freely joking and overall comfortable with the Buchanan's the first time he goes over to their house.
On the other hand, I really thought the acting was good overall. A tad bit overdone at times, I thought Leanardo gave a good performance overall. Toby Maguire exceeded my expectations as Nick, and Carey Mulligan hit Daisy Buchanan as I remembered her spot on. Tom, played by Joel Edgerton and Myrtle played by Isla Fisher had good performances as well. Despite my complaints I was entertained throughout maybe because I just enjoy the plot of The Great Gatsby, but I was certainly never bored. Overall I give this movie a 8.0/10, but I still feel most people especially less picky moviegoers will enjoy this movie.
Yeah, I saw it last weekend. Some highs and some lows. I think you're right, Luhrman tinkered with the Nick character too much. Also, the last 1/2 hour of Daisy's performance really bugged me. In the book, she's much more despicable. But, great performance by Leo, and the party scenes really worked well for me. Some scenes were really well done, but some were just a little off. Ultimately, very difficult to make this story a film because the meat of it (in my mind) is Nick's narration and thoughts about what's going on.
ReplyDeleteGood job with these reviews all semester.