Masterpiece? I don't think so, not even a fraction of one.

Rating: 3/10 (13 May 2019)

When I saw the trailer back in the day, I knew it was a movie I wasn't going to see. I decided to give it a shot recently. I couldn't get over how it kind of felt like Forrest Gump, and then I discovered the screenplay was written by the same guy who did that movie. I found that aspect very distracting.
Then there was the weird CGI. Brad Pitts transplanted on an old face, with a young-sized body. Strangely, when Button gets older, they choose to use separate actors to play him in the 'youthful' roles. Why didn't they just do that with him in the younger-older self earlier in the film?
And then there's the problem with Brad Pitt's acting, or maybe its the Benjamin Button character in general. It doesn't seem like anything is really going on with this guy. He's adopted by a black lady, but doesn't seem to hold much emotion for her. And strange coincidence, the day he returns, she just died. Too convenient, maybe if he had shown up a few weeks later, because he had been sailing around up to that point, it would have been more realistic. But then there's the funeral, and that's it. No emotion, no regrets about not being there for mama. Well, he does go to India, no explanation really given why he choice that place, and comes back physically changed, but it doesn't seem like he's learned anything. Or developed as a person, or character.
So the Benjamin Button is similar to Forrest Gump, in the sense that he maintains the same personality, note, rhythm, for the entire course of the movie, while the world around him changes. When he does, it's like 'oh well'. And the modern day setting of the hospital in Hurricane Katrina. I was waiting for a 'well, that's interesting' moment, but it seemed pointless. They might as well have set it in 2003 or 2001, why bother connecting it to Katrina without any point?
David Fincher has put out some great movies. I think he excels in thrillers, not dramas about characters set over long periods of time. I'm surprised this movie didn't get Robert Zemeckis to do it. At least it would completed the Forrest Gump-esque nature of the movie.