The emperor has no clothes.

Rating: 1/10 (20 November 2019)

The CGI faces create a soulless effect. It never feels like a real film, just a digital recreation where computerized characters are pretending to be DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci. They basically robbed us of the reunion by experimenting with a technique that fails so badly we know never to do that. The tragedy is this was not a time to experiment. They hang the entire picture on the believability of the de-aging, and it doesn't work for a second. It's egregious, bizarre, and will age horribly for the simple reason it's not registering as acting because computer programmers are doing the acting via mouseclicks. For Marty, a purest of cinema, to have this little respect for the purity of performance marks this as hypocrisy how he trashes blockbuster film. This is the theme park ride. This is a greatest hits tour through his oeuvre. This is uncanny directorial valley. I'm certain in 2050, you would get these old actors recreated exactly like this. That is our soulless future. Why rush to it? And the sad thing is, the cast were all there, and we will never get to see what they did. Clearly everyone is in denial and reviewing Scorsese's other works and pretending the emperor's wardrobe is just wonderful. When critics talk about the last half hour being a conscientious meditative coda on the gangster epic? Well sure, because they finally showed him acting. And it's not just that the CGI sinks the film, it's that it calls the entire thing into question and demands every other area perfect to make up for it, and can you honestly say the script and story is matching the perception of these rave reviews?