Why you should and shouldn't see The Social Network

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2011)

The Story Mark Zuckerberg, an abrasive Harvard programming genius without blue-blood pedigree, dreams of achieving social status in school and beyond. To do this he creates what would become the most popular website in the world, and he's accused of betrayal several times along the way. Is he a backstabber or simply one of the greatest businesspeople of our time?
The Social Network paints Zuckerberg as neither hero nor villain. He's merely obsessed with his mission and, paradoxically, both a brilliant manipulator of social needs on a broad scale, and blind--perhaps willfully so--to the emotions of those closest to him. (Eisenberg's performance nearly screams "Asperger's!," but otherwise the film never raises the syndrome as a possibility.)
Being a Sorkin creation, this version of Zuckerberg gives us a vicarious thrill in each flash-forward deposition, during which the powers that be smugly attempt to squash him down and he answers with a crushing, unanswerable retort every time. However we are never sure if what he is speaking to power is actually truth, or what he would like it to be.
Why you should see it: You enjoy a good, profound Sorkin speech. You're glad to see Eisenberg differentiate himself from Michael Cera, although you can't decide whether the two of them playing brothers would be a wonderful idea or a terrible one.
Why you shouldn't see it: You want to finish reading the book first. You want to finish reading Facebook first.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com