Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (25 January 2017)

Ryan Gosling: They may as well of had a piece of driftwood "acting" opposite Stone. This guy is so useless I was embarrassed for him. To start with, he sounds retarded (is he?). His 'serious face' makes him look constipated (I was half expecting him to let one rip the entire way through). I've seen stroke victims with a wider range of expressions than him. He's so vanilla, lame, boring, possessing a total lack of charisma. The best reviews he ever had were for roles with barely no lines, "moody" films like 'The Place Beyond the Pines' and 'Drive' when all he had to do was sulk!. If he wins an Oscar for on the back of this performance it will be an absolute travesty! He can't sing, he can't dance, and literally sucks the life out of every scene he's involved in.
Now Emma Stone is lovely, She's 'sweet' but one dimensional in that she's always playing the same character. This was a gross miscasting. you can't help but pity her when she sings, it's like your 5 year old niece at a school play, but worse, no depth or range at all, completely drowned out by the music in every scene. She has some rhythm when it comes to dancing, but the set pieces are so laughably childish it's hard to gauge her true capabilities (clearly dumb-ed down to accommodate Gosling's lack of talent). To make matters worse, time has not been kind to Stone. Whatever youthful looks she may or may not have had are long gone. Her face is beginning to morph into yet another plastic Hollywood mess. She's not hot, she's not sexy, but neither is Gosling so I guess in that respect they're evenly matched...
The script was OK. Stone's character begins and ends the same with no progression mentally and Gosling;well he's so boring you just give up caring. However; the rest of the cast were stellar. John Legend has some smooth vocals but he is rather oily. Had they cast people with real talent in the lead roles then I think this could have been magnificent. Worth mentioning;The cinematography was excellent, visually stunning, an orgy of colour bursting out from the screen in each and every scene; and the songs, although forgettable, had a certain unique charm to them. I predict a theatre production in the near future.
To sum it up, If your date makes you chose between this and Titanic, I'd chose this. Just don't go expecting it to live up to the hype. Peace x