The book seems a lot more valuable now.

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2013)

Let me start off by saying I am not a fan of the book. I do not completely hate the book, but I was waiting for the end pretty soon after I had begun. However, this movie has done so much in opening my eyes up to the beauty of the book. As such, I prefer the film over the paper version, something quite rare. Given this fine quality, there were plenty of aspects that were not pulled off quite so well, along with some that were quite brilliant.
To start off, the music playing at the parties had many modern songs. If that's what they had in the '20s, imagine the stuff we would be listening to in the present. But, while on the subject of music, they made almost the whole film have background music of some sort. One of my biggest complaints with the book was that it was too slow. It's almost as if the crew realized this and put in music for the sluggish parts.
Back to a con, if the producers are putting so much money into a film, would they not realize it is important to make sure a shot does not contain a mouth moving without sound emanating from it? It looks like they did not bother because there were plenty of camera angle switches that showed one character moving their mouths after having completed their set of dialog. That was quite frustrating.
Of course, there had to be a lot of CGI to give the impression that the audience was truly immersed into the 1920s. But, we are in 2013 and I should not be able to tell when a green screen was used. At least, it should be to a minimum. There were too many times when I compared the movie to stuff from last decade. But, the way in which the movie was shot and presented was quite surreal. I do not know the official term for it, if there is one.
Lastly, the whole cast does an absolutely terrific job embodying their respective characters and playing out each scene. It does not seem strained in the slightest. Additionally, the whole team did a marvelous job of keeping the 1920s world intact. Nothing out of the time period seemed to be present.
All in all, the movie covered every major event from the book and stuck true to the medium on which it was based. A great job, but not as perfectly executed as it could have been. Watched and written 12/20/2013.