Yet another over-rated Scorsese outing...

Rating: 6/10 (27 August 2010)

...that leads me to question (once again) the movie-going sensibilities of the "common man" as represented by the denizens of the IMDb. I am utterly perplexed that this high-grade bit of noir-ish filmmaking has so impressed the masses; its current rating is far too generous for what's been delivered. Much like "Avatar," Scorsese's latest is all about style and very little about substance. The "twist" to the story is so transparent that it becomes obvious long before the film is over, thus rendering the final reels an exercise in tedium. Hearkening back to the days of Hitchcockian psychological thrillers, replete with obvious dreamscape tropes like vertiginous cliffs, revelatory caverns, and hallucinatory warnings, "Shutter Island" mines its territory with no small degree of authority, but no lesser degree of familiarity and lack of tension and surprise. The professionalism of the work is admirable, but its creativity and heart are, sad to say, pedestrian and unremarkable. I have no doubt that the novel on which it was based is a better read than "Shutter Island" is a viewing.
Scorsese scored his best box office to date with "Shutter Island," so I suppose I shouldn't complain too loudly about how he's been progressively dumbing down his product (although, then again, maybe that's exactly what I should be complaining about); it's at least small blessing that his repeated collaborations with Leonardo "Titanic" DiCaprio have born financial fruit. Using established collaborators/luminaries like DP Robert "Kill Bill" Richardson, production designer Dante "Casino" Ferretti, and a host of name actors (even in peripheral roles) certainly didn't hurt, but unlike the aforementioned "Vertigo" and others of its stature, "Shutter Island" is destined to recede from the fickle memory of the great unwashed masses to take its place in the immense repository of "better than a sharp stick in the eye" films that Hollywood churns out by the hundreds.
What is it with the lapdog idolization of Scorcese by the predominantly adolescent/young adult IMDb legions? The man has helmed a solid pantheon of "great" movies, including "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," "Goodfellas," and arguably "The Last Temptation of Christ" (and perhaps even "The King of Comedy"), but this is little reason to elevate his lesser works to equal heights. Are his fans here on this site truly that indiscriminate, or unschooled? Perhaps it has to do with the man's intimate devotion to popular music, as evinced by films like "The Last Waltz," "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," "Shine a Light," and the upcoming "Sinatra;" I don't know. All I know, I suppose, is that Scorsese is finally getting his due, and I suppose that isn't all bad. If it takes LCD work like "Shutter Island" to do it, I guess I'll accept it. But it won't change my perceptions of quality storytelling one iota, nor my dismay at the easy acceptance of average as excellent by the bulk of young moviegoers.