Well-Paced and Interesting

Rating: 9/10 (24 February 2016)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has a very interesting idea. It's the life story of a man who ages backwards, starting from being a very physically old baby and growing up into a regular baby. It's quite an interesting concept, and it definitely turned out well.
The plot of this movie is, like I just said, very interesting. However, with an idea like this it could prove difficult to make it interesting, especially when it's rocking a near 3-hour run time. However, while I know many people who found it to be slow and boring, I was very intrigued by it. I love these kinds of movies to begin with, and I only found one part of the whole movie to be particularly slow. It only lasted for about 10-15 minutes, so it didn't take away from the movie too much. Other than that, it's well-paced and interesting to watch.
The character development is pretty good too. It's a life story movie, so you'd hope so. While there's more development of Benjamin Button himself, there's enough for the other characters that they still feel relatively important and you still feel relatively attached to each one.
Something that I haven't been fond of in movies is when it starts with two characters and one of them tells the story of the movie and then the actual story starts. This movie had just that, but there was enough focus on the characters telling and hearing the story and they were relevant enough to the story that it didn't feel pointless, but more that it made the story better. It actually helped explain a thing or two about the movie as well.
One of the main problems that I had with the movie was the romantic aspect of it. While it wasn't particularly poorly done it wasn't something we've never seen before. In fact, it felt horribly similar to that of Forrest Gump, which was made over 10 years beforehand. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was big enough to make a difference in the movie. Also, the fact that the romance between the main characters was shown primarily through their sexual behavior was a little annoying. While their relationship is well-developed, there wasn't enough focus on why they loved each other, but more on how much they love each other's body parts.
Overall The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a very interesting, and very long, movie. The plot is interesting, it's well-paced, and the characters are good. Unfortunately, the romantic aspect of it could have used some more work, but it was still good for the most part. In the end I'd definitely recommend this movie, so long as you like movies of this length about living life. I can see pretty much anyone being bored by this movie, but there will definitely be some of you who are as intrigued as I was by it I'm sure.