A Movie...Not a Book...

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2013)

As my title says, this is a movie and not a book. If you want this movie to be drawn-out, slow, thematic, and dramatic, then your in the wrong place. That stuff doesn't sell movies these days.
With that being said, I did not feel that the movie was too over-the-top or far off from the book. I was actually scared going into the movie because I thought it was going to be dreadfully slow and dramatic. Also the terrible CGI in the trailers did not help. However, the movie got on my good side pretty quickly. The director was very in tune with what the majority of people want from a movie about The Great Gatsby. He made the entire movie a memory of Nick Carraway's. That was a brilliant idea because it allowed for the crappy CGI, rapid pace, and sometimes questionable soundtrack to fall under the, "its just how he remembers it" idea.
The book was terribly slow. This movie is quick and it includes a lot of stuff. People say it is all flash over substance, but if they can't see the substance then they weren't looking. It is supposed to be flashy! Its the Roaring Twenties! The spectacle was perfect to give the viewer a sign of the times.
The acting was awesome! I thought that they had Carraway and Gatsby casted perfectly as Toby McGuire and Leonardo DiCaprio going into the movie, but what I didn't see coming was Buchanan! I think the actors name is Edgerton or something like that, but that dude did an awesome job in this movie. It seems like every actor was in-tune with their character. Thank goodness DiCaprio understood Gatsby. He seems like such a manipulator in the book sometimes; however the movie gives him a more human-element and the viewer can see that he is many things.
I will have to admit, going in I was scared that this movie was going to be a total flop. The CGI scared me, Jay-Z always scares me, and the fact that it was a movie about a insanely dramatic book scared me. However, at the end of the movie I felt like I understood the novel better than I ever had before. Was it a bit over the top in places? yes. Did it play too much on some themes and not others? yes. Did it follow the book exactly? no. But it is a book that people love and when that is the case no movie adaptation can ever be correct. I feel that this movie did a tremendous job of staying true to the book, the setting, the themes, the characters, and the tragedy.
This is definitely a must see.