The Great Gatsby Review

Think about it, there must be higher love---Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan as a couple on the run from themselves in The Great Gatsby

                                             The Great Gatsby is just about the worst adaptation of a book I have ever seen. It is a phoned in piece of garbage that starts out boring and stays that way throughout. The film feels more like a parody than anything else and is completely pointless. As with his 1996 "modern" adaptation of Romeo & Juliet....Luhrmann proves that he thinks just by adding modern language and contemporary music into the mix of things...he's automatically being edgy and cool. On the contrary, Luhrmann has now managed to ruin two of the greatest pieces of literature even written by being a completely unskilled director. To call him the Uwe Boll of book to film adaptation directors would be a complete insult to Boll himself.

                                            In this mess of a film....Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby. He is a mysterious man whose neighbor, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is dying to meet him. At a party...Jay falls for Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) whose husband, Tom (Joel Edgerton) grows increasingly suspicious. 

                                           The film is not as riveting as it sounds. In fact...it's not riveting at all. It is really, really, really boring. Every one of these actors sounds like they're trying to make the audience laugh rather than take them seriously. The character of Jay called everyone "old sport" which became increasingly annoying. As well....Nick is played with such goofiness and so unrealistically by Maguire that you start to get the impression that no one is even trying. Mulligan and Edgerton are just boring...giving the audience absolutely nothing to work with.

                                              Also....the film tries to tell a tragic love story but at times plays it way too grim and at other times plays it in such a hilariously bad manner that I was trying not to laugh in my packed theater. The film never manages to find the right tone and the use of contemporary music such as Lana Del Rey and Jay Z is rather ludicrous. After all...it is a film about the 1920's. At least with last year's Django Unchained....the film allowed for rap music because it used it in the right manner. Here...it's just playing rap music for the sake of playing rap music.

                                              The film is also way too long. It took me a shorter amount of time to read the book than it did to watch the film. The Great Gatsby is not a good film in any way, shape or form. So go read the book...you'll learn more, you'll have more fun and you won't want to stab your eyeballs out from boredom.

(0 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language)