Overrated. Overrated. Did I Mention Overrated?

Rating: 7/10 (31 December 2008)

As of this writing, Benjamin Button is number 70 on IMDb's Top 250 movies of the year list. Many people believe this film deserves, in a year with films like Frost/Nixon and Doubt (and many others which I will not mention) that this is the one film which will bring home Best Picture.
Wow. This is overrated. It will bring home the Oscars it deserves: Cinematography and Makeup, and if it's very, very, lucky, Special Effects.
What bugs me most about the film is the thing at the core: the relationship between Daisy and Benjamin. It misses something very, very, important: why they fell in love in the first place.
The most interesting section is one that completely captivated: when he has a love affair with a lady at the Russian hotel, why? Because they kept it at a brisk 30 minutes so it doesn't drag on for 2 hours, it gets you captivated, and it ends when it is meant to end. You can also tell why they had the affair in the first place: they wanted to find out to what it was like to be in love, or in the girls case: Benjamin's strange affliction.
You (or at least me) become sick of Benjamin's relationship with Daisy when you realize it fails to ask the most important question at what is the dead center of the entire 2 hour 48 minute film: Why did they fall in love???
Pitt gives a tolerable performance, nothing Oscar worthy. Blanchett, on the other hand was very good as Daisy, trying to fuel the chemistry with Pitt that just isn't there.
It's also very long with a 168-minute runtime, it thinks it can spend all the time trying to win, but in the end, it fails. There are many useless scenes that could've been thrown out (particularly this one scene in which it shows all the things, which could've happened to prevent Daisy being hit by a cab, which leaves you thinking in the 5-minute section that feels more like 30 minutes which left me thinking "when will this end???").
Worth a rental for the astounding cinematography and makeup.