Well...... That was disappointing......

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2016)

'The Big Short', nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.... and i have just one question. Why? I thought the trailer looked pretty good, it was about a somewhat interesting topic that i knew jack about, but with big names attached and a very positive response, i was expecting more, a lot more. This is not going to be a popular opinion as clearly lots of people love this movie, but i must have missed something, or lots of things as for a good 50% of this film i was bored out of my mind. This was a Drama/Biopic focusing on a very serious and from what i gathered very complex topic revolving around the collapse of the economy, bank stuff, the housing market, and a tonne of other stuff i have no idea about. So it had an uphill task from the beginning, trying to get me interested in the film for 2 hours. And in the end, it only managed to do that for about half of the film. I thought the acting was definitely a positive from everyone, the flicker of humour was well implemented and some unique or interesting choices made in the editing of the film had me really enjoying it at some moments. But everything else..... yeh not so great.
The film started out rather engaging, being introduced to all these various characters was fun. It had a serious yet slightly quirky tone, and i gotta say it was great that they kept that tone consistent the whole way through. I was following what was going on, and it was going at a nice calm pace allowing me to pick up most things and piece things together. The film at this point was very interesting and entertaining and had pleasantly surprised me with the editing choices made so far. And that lasted for about an hour, then it just kept going, and going, and i began to lose interest fast, to the point where 20 minutes later i just wanted this thing to be over. I was barely following what was going on with all these numbers and who all these people were and their connections to the story, and it severely hurt my enjoyment of the film. The film even tries to carry people along by stopping the film to have various famous faces explain some of the concepts and banking terms being used. Now although i found these moments surprising and rather fun to watch, i was still just as lost afterwards as i was before. All of this may just be my inability to understand what was going on, or the story maybe was presented in a shitty incomprehensible manner with terrible writing. I'm not right and i'm not wrong.
The acting all across the board was really good, Steve Carrell did a great job as whoever he was, Ryan Gosling put in a strong performance, Brad Pitt was good i guess, and Christian Bale did a great job also and was probably the best of the bunch. They definitely committed to their roles and each one of their personalities felt different and their characters at times had some very interesting dialogue and things to say. But their performances just couldn't get me invested in what was going on. The humour was well delivered, i laughed a few times, and it was a pretty nice blend of humour into this very serious topic and breathed a bit of fresh air into the film. But for me, after that half way point i just couldn't appreciate any of that stuff anymore because i was so bored from my lack of interest in what was going on. I am not saying this is a god awful movie, and i'm definitely not saying that it doesn't deserve to be nominated for all of those Academy Awards, but if it was up to me, Terminator Genisys would be up for Best Picture before i even consider this.
So if you really want to see this film, go right ahead, you will probably get something out of it that i most certainly did not. If you end up agreeing with me that's great, if you end up completely disagreeing with me then that's even better.
4.8/10