Times irreversible gift of splendour and magic.

Rating: 8/10 (7 February 2009)

Cinema does not come as epic as this new David Fincher two hour and fifty-one minute masterpiece. Not since the days of Kubrick's Spartacus (1960), Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959) and Kusturica's vision of the break-up of Yugoslavia that is Underground (1995) these full length features are truly magnificent in their own right and with a production value second to none it is the stuff of magic and extravaganza that Cinema has come to expect.
Growing foreword but aging backward, it is the tale of a man whose growing process is seen in reverse. This feature starts with a poignant prologue to express the uses of time, and what if time can run backward to replenish lost chances and to right wrongs that would, in time, hold no regrets, taking back what might have been lost, second chances and first opportunities. The regret of the tugboat captain never becoming the artist he wanted to be and the first female swimmer to have never succeeded in finishing crossing the English Channel are victims of life's regret and who cannot take away the fact that time is ever marching forward with chances lost, or are they? We see this theory within the first moments of the film, as the blind clock builder builds his clock that ticks backward so life can learn to run its course with no regret. It is time itself that is the redeeming factor that centres around Benjamin Button living and at the same time dying in reverse and the people that he comes across in his life.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald's (1896  1940) 1921 short story has been given its contemporary feel by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, who has taken Fitzgerald's concept and made it their own, the charming vision here is only propelled by its visual intake of soft tones and tranquil dexterity of Claudio Miranda's eye. It all makes for a visceral experience that throughout his life the sombre mood takes relevance over the computer-generated imagery and detracts not in the slightest to the narrative. We see the changes in the man and we see the changes in his environments and the people that grow alongside him. Where the crossroads of life meet, we too see the simple tale of Benjamin and Daisy, and it is a simple tale, any tale that life can tell, but it is the execution in the telling that holds the attention.
Of course, like its older siblings, it is pure cinematic mush and this is no bad feet of engineering, which uses its modern technology to place The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the height of Cinema excellence. Going for the ultimate, yet inevitable, conclusion, as with its peers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, throughout his life, grows on you and never looks back.