Everything a movie should be: entertaining, thought provoking, and inspiring.

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2016)

What is important in life? I could probably right my entire review solely about how this movie addresses that question. And that would leave about ten vital themes unexamined. There seems to be a lot of controversy over what sort of points the story tries to make, but I don't think it's trying to make you believe anything. All it's saying is that your life is most likely not what it could be and that you need to slap yourself in the face and do something about it. They don't care what you do, all they care is that you do *something*.
After all, this is where the Narrator starts his journey. Even though visiting the support groups doesn't get him where he wants to be, it is a vital first step in his chaotic spiral into finding himself. Eventually, he realizes that combating consumerism and corporate lifestyle has gone too far and he feels responsible. The pendulum of his lifestyle has swung from one extreme to the other instead of resting in the middle, and now he has led thousands of other men to the same unhealthy level of change. But I think it would be more consistent with the theme to say that the members of Fight Club brought themselves into their current state. Tyler and the Narrator just started it; they could not have brought it to Project Mayhem level if not for the passion of each member. All of them need the same thing the Narrator does.
Another central theme is chaos. We are, even seventeen years later, a society that is obsessed with feeling in control. You need look no further than our culture-defining superheroes that battle the "agents of chaos". Tyler introduces the Narrator to the positive outcomes of chaos and shows him that being in control of your life is only possible if you aren't in control at all. In trying to reject all suffering through the contents of his apartment, the Narrator has made himself incapable of dealing with suffering. This leads to what was the most striking scene of the film for me: the hand burning, and Tyler's speech about the beauty of accepting pain "like a living person". Tyler seems pretty disgusted with how the Narrator initially handles the loss of his apartment and how he fails to see it as a chance to start over.
Of course, we can't forget Marla Singer, who is probably as important to the Narrator's life behavior as Tyler is. The Narrator claims to hate her because of how much she reminds him of himself. In that sense, maybe his mind created Tyler as a way to fight off Marla, since Tyler is who he wishes he were. Then again, the Narrator never fully commits to either side of this internal battle. But neither of them seem to fully respect him, which I guess says a lot about the Narrator's self-esteem.
In an execution sense, it was amazing. The story is paced so fast that ten minutes feels like fifteen because of how much is packed into them. The dialogue is spot on the entire time, not wasting one line on information about the "world of the story" because we all live in the world of the story: it's our lives. Even the voice-over, an element that can often be problematic, was applied perfectly. And to top that off, it was the screenwriter's first feature script. The actors finish the job by bringing the characters wonderfully to life. The camera-work and directing were both incredible as well, drawing you fully into the emotion of the scene, and the dingy color scheme set a constant mood of dissatisfaction and the garbage-like nature of the Narrator's life.
I can understand if people are put off by some of the themes discussed in the movie or its portrayal of violence, but including those things does not mean that they are promoting them. To say that this film promotes violence or asocial behavior is to look at it with a limited scope and miss the true message. I know it may seem like I gave too much of a fanboy's perspective, which is understandable since I consider this movie as second only to Inception. But my opinion aside, I think that this is a movie that pretty much everybody should see at some point between the ages of 16 and 50 because, like it or not, it is a film about your life to some extent. Overall Rating: 9.5/10.