Underwhelming Great Gatsby

Rating: 6/10 (28 June 2013)

The excellent cast, stunning visuals & a brilliant but missed opportunity for somber social commentary combined are not enough to save save the much anticipated Great Gatsby from being anything more than mediocre. The screenplay itself lacked substance something that Fitzgerald's iconic and intricately detailed first hand accounts of the notorious excesses of the day did not. It is a shame that too many people submitting reviews obviously have never read The Great Gatsby, much less anything by Fitzgerald. Luhrman's shallow adaptation is not a creative expression of the period that parallels exactly what we are as a society again. The lack of depth mostly squanders the talents of the superb cast (the one exception being Toby McGuire). This is a movie with such tremendous possibility that what was done well is hopelessly overshadowed by all that it overlooked.