A Beautiful Film that Lacks Emotion

Rating: 5/10 (13 May 2013)

So a dramatic film, from the director of "Moulin Rouge" and "Romeo + Juliet" marketed as a visual spectacle, shot in 3D; what could possibly go wrong?
Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name, "The Great Gatsby" focuses on, not Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), but rather the times that his neighbor, Nick Carraway, (Tobey Maguire) spent with him during the roaring twenties.
So this is one of those very hit or miss movies. As someone who has never read the book, I really can't make comparisons so I can only judge it as a movie. I'll start with the negatives, because I feel that the movie missed more points than it hit. First, a positive, this is a very beautiful movie to look at. It's so visually beautiful that it seems to take away from the story and becomes a distraction. I didn't see this movie in 3D, but I have a feeling the 3D wouldn't have made a difference, despite being a visual spectacle, it are aren't a lot of visual scenes, which I feel may have led to some useless 3D. I found the music very distracting. Sometimes they would play music that was relevant for the time period this movie take play, but other times they would play hip hop music or other popular songs relevant for the 21st century. I seriously expected "Gangnam Style" to play at some point. It would've made as much sense as featuring JAY Z or Beyonce and Andre 3000 in the movie.
Now this movie isn't all bad, because this movie did get many things right. Even though the visual style distracts form the story, it is incredible to look and there was never a dull moment though out the entire movie. The performances were also great, I haven't seen Tobey Maguire in anything after he finished the Spider-Man Trilogy, but he managed to break away from the awkward nerd that he was known for in "Spider-Man". Even though Carrey Mulligan was good, in nearly every scene she's in, it looks like she's on the verge of tears. Obviously the star of the movie is Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. Who am I going to have to beat up in order to insure that this man gets an Oscar? Not for this movie, but this role does continue to show how great of an actor Leo is.
Overall it's not a mess of a film, but it definitely could've had some major improvements, but what it got right, it got really right. I feel that it's one of those movies where you make up your own mind about it. If you feel that it's for you, you might like it. If not, then you can either avoid it or wait for it to come out on Blu-ray.