Um...are you people serious?

Rating: 3/10 (30 December 2008)

I did not like this movie. If you liked this movie, you were conned. Fooled by a bad movie disguised as a great epic sensational story about life death love and how it all makes absolutely no sense. I can't help but notice the many flaws in the plot that many other reviewers have already covered. And how these issues weren't enough to ruin this movie for some people is beyond me. Imagine Forrest Gump saying, "you know what, there's always this peculiar white feather that's always floating around me when something significant happens." Well, this is literally the case in this film. And who can ignore the fact that the script is a complete (almost scene for scene) rehash of Forrest Gump? This watered down movie received predetermined and obvious emotional responses from its fast food audience. I wasn't having any of it. By the 3rd time the "old lightning guy" does his thing, I wasn't surprised that fools in the audience were still laughing and actually thought it was a funny bit to begin with. Nearly all the humor in the movie was corny and trite. I literally shook my head after each scene. Not because I didn't get it, but because there was nothing to get. Yet this movie keeps getting reviews claiming cinematic perfection. Far from it.
Now visually the movie is indeed wonderful. But so is a reprint of a famous painting. Please give me something original! I will say the films score was beautiful. And while the acting wasn't all that bad (considering the script of clichés they had to work with) I wouldn't herald it as anything too impressive. I've never read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story and neither has Brad Pitt according to the recent Rolling Stone interview. Doesn't that bother you? Usually when a movie with this magnitude of reviews ends, there's a sense of movie magic that sweeps over the audience as the credits roll. Yet, when this movie ended, there was no applause and no feeling that the audience as a whole connected to the movie. There were the random people crying at the end and I looked at them like they were aliens. Movies have made me cry before, but it has to be genuine. You knew for 3 hours that Brad Pitt's character was going to die. How can you get upset? The supporting characters leave the movie all of a sudden and with no real value to them in the first place. They completely ignore huge departures of main characters and drivel over the deaths of insignificant ones. Blatant reuses of ideas from Big Fish too. I longed for my own deathbed after 3 hours of this nonsense. Emotionally driven scenes ruined with an attempt at humor. Kate Blanchett: "I have to pee." And why did they have to step on the damn baby in the beginning? Couldn't they have just looked down? Or heard it crying? Who writes this crap? And Benjamin's father felt more like he was cruising' for a young stud than trying to reconnect with his long lost son. I won't even waste my time ridiculing the useless hurricane Katrina subplot. Maybe this is a film for morons who didn't get Forrest Gump because its high concept went over their heads. I'm being sarcastic.
Apparently I'm not the only person in the universe who didn't like this movie. Thanks to all the other honest and educated moviegoers for leveling the playing field with their own Ben Button reviews.