Don't Waste Your Money or Your Time

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2013)

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels. It was required reading in American Lit. However, the movie is mockery of F. Scoot Fitzgerald's novel. The novel left much for the imagination with its powerful imagery. This movie sucks. It is like a comic book version of the original novel leaving nothing to the imagination. It is only what the movie maker imagines, not what Fitzgerald had in mind. As for the cast, the last person that should have been cast as Gatsby is Leonardo DiCaprio. He not only doesn't fit the image of Gatsby, trying to make him Gatsby is like trying to drive a square peg through a round hole. And he doesn't even come close to acting like Gatsby.
If a viewer had read Fitzgerald's book and then walked into this movie without knowing that it was supposed to be based on the novel, one would not have recognized the movie. Perhaps a viewer would have believed it was some sort of sequel.
While the earlier Great Gatsby with Robert Redford was not perfect, at least it strongly resembled the novel, which this last version does not. So if someone wants to see a movie version of the Great Gatsby, watch the Redford version. Don't waste either your money or your time on this wacky version. Best yet, go read the book which I am doing again. That is the only benefit I got from watching the movie. It got me to read the book again which after this stinking movie, made me realize how good a writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald was.