The good Gatsby.. not quite great

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2013)

A luxurious feast for the eyes. Its like a cookbook. Perfect pictures of wonder that you could never create, yet the more you look you see that the ice cream is mashed potatoes and and the lettuce is plastic. You see it, its nice but you soon see its fake. That's the problem. Gatsby is a good movie. fun, it has a voyeurs quality of the outsider looking in on the highs and lows. It was enjoyable, the acting was pale but good and the visuals luxurious. I am glad I watched it, but you see it was fake. It never draws you fully in.
It was not great. the Cgi is so over done as to be absurd. many times it looks utterly cartoonish. Very poor attention to period was maintained. Out of date skylines and cars, modern glassware and jewelry. modern suits for the most part. this is no trip back to the roaring twenties. The soundtrack was a travesty. little to no big band, little jazz. a lot of organ and orchestra and.. modern hip hop and rap. there was no reason for hip hop and rap in this movie at all. There is a scene where a group of black people are dancing in a driving car to Snoop dog playing while their white Chauffeur drives and watches their bucket of champagne. uhhhhmm. There was a lot of racism in the twenties, no rap, and prohibition, and brutal police. This film likes to forget the politics and social climate and give us a Rianna video instead. the dances were poor and not to period.
this is fiction, not a look into the past and don't go to it expecting to see what that age looked like. you will be disappointed. the classicist old money struggle is introduced and forgotten, so is the criminal element. this is a movie full of half tried attempts at greatness.
DiCaprio will probably get an Oscar. only because he is "due" from other great films not from his work here. ultimately The great Gatsby is just Toby Maguire telling a story that is not spider man.