Pretty weak...ESPECIALLY for someone as great as Martin Scorsese

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2020)

Look, I adore Martin Scorsese's movies as much as the next guy. I mean, how could you forget some of his brilliant films like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and The Wolf of Wall Street ? Credited as some of the greatest of all time and some of my personal favorites. However, I was not impressed by this movie. And quite frankly, I haven't been impressed with Scorcese for a while now.
Those are words I never expected to come out of my mouth, but they did.
So where do we start? Honestly, as far as movies go in general I don't have problems with long movies. Hell, I've probably sat through longer. But for a movie that is almost 4 hours long, this movie in truth should be more like 2 hours long because it kept dragging at the start and towards it end. The movie had some good parts in the middle, but that's it. Only a few good parts and the rest was lacking. The plot was getting over repetitive. And it just became boring to watch. Some scenes were actually laughable to watch.
This movie feels like a remake of Goodfellas with Jimmy Hoffa. Don't get me wrong, Scorcese SHINES in the mobster genre, and it's why this very movie feels like a copy of his previous movies with new characters thrown into the bunch. Bringing back De Niro, Pachino, and Pesci is endearing, cause this feels like a safe guard for them since those kinda gritty roles gangster roles are what they're best at. The whole time watching I didn't feel like I saw anything new, being that you could predict the end within an hour. Scorcese is sticking to his roots, what can I say. He's bringing back his acting darlings. A few good scenes here and there, but nothing really changed for me. I think the last Scorcese movie I was impressed with was The Wolf of Wall Street, and it was because Scorcese showed me he can shine in non mobster films, and it was refreshing to watch.
I have a mixed reception with de-aging actors in film. If you take a 40 year old actor and are trying to make them look about 3-5 years younger, it works fine because the change isn't as noticeable. However, if you are taking a 50-60 something year old actor and trying to make them look about 20+ years younger, you've kinda ruined the realism you were trying to create. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are outstanding actors and I'm not denying any of their acting talent in the slightest. But I feel like they were physically done dirty in terms of the VFX that was done to their faces. Seriously. Is it too hard to find younger screen understudies for Pacino and De Niro? That was the most unnecessary aspect of the movie. Also, there was this one scene in where De Niro is kicking a man out of a store, and it was so awkwardly shot and acted in that one scene, that I laughed.
While in truth this movie could be classified as great, I find it pretty weak for a Scorsese film. Very forgettable. I don't think I'll watch this specific movie for a while. Not worth the almost 4 hours. I appreciate the work, but I'll take that pass.
Final score- 5.1/10