Technology over story

Rating: 6/10 (29 November 2019)

A suggestion: if watching on Netflix, turn the brightness down, mute the colours, and reduce the sharpness.
This helps to hide the jarring uncanny valley effect of watching live actors who look like 3D puppets.
While the de-aging technology is amazing (but also worrying from an artistic point of view), it just isn't convincing. I found it worked better in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but the lead actors there are a bit younger than here.
It actually looked better when I took off my spectacles, which gave me a chance, ironically, to focus on the performances of the actors without wincing or thinking I was watching some old mafia version of Polar Express that I somehow missed first time around.
I would have much preferred younger actors playing the roles, but I understand the marketing value, and perhaps even the artistic expectations, of a Scorsese, DeNiro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel reunion.
So much for the technology.
Storywise, I can't say much yet, since to my surprise I stopped watching after half an hour.
Stop watching a new Scorsese movie?! I just couldn't muster up the interest to care about any of the characters, perhaps because of the distracting technology, or perhaps because (for me at least) the Scorsese-style gangster movie is old news now. There are some modern touches (technology aside), but overall the style of it just seems dated and worn.
And no, I don't expect dramatic storylines. One of my favorite recent films is Roma, one of the slowest moving films of all time, but which I consider a directorial masterpiece.
Of all the characters, I find the women more interesting. Again nothing new, but at least there's a sense of something more than just macho mafia swagger. Harvey Keitel (or what I can see of him trying to fight its way through the layers of 3D) is excellent as usual. An understated yet powerful performance. I would have liked to have seen more of the daughter, perhaps even had the story from her point of view - that might have made it feel more fresh.
I'll watch the rest of it today, if I can be bothered. So why post a review now? Because I wanted to share my first impressions, which aren't good. I'd hoped to be somehow shocked and amazed by a new Scorsese film, but for me it's sadly flat and disappointing. Too high expectations? Maybe, but this is Scorsese with his old gang!
It's like a long-awaited new album from a favorite band of legendary rockers (think The Who). It has one or two great tracks, but overall is a tired reworking of old themes - and worse, the aging vocals are all auto-tuned almost beyond recognition.
Some new ideas, tighter editing, and "real" actors would have made this a much better film. Time to watch Raging Bull again.