MovieChat Forums > The Great Gatsby (2013) Discussion > why did this get such mized reviews

why did this get such mized reviews


Most girls I know loved this movie. I watched it with my parents and they liked it too even though they never read it book. My little sisters in high school and they watched this movie to compliment the book and she said she said everyone was excited to watch it. Like it's not perfect but It's pretty accurate to the book. Only half the critics gave it a positive review? Why did it get such mixed reviews? The directing style?

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This film took a big-budget, highly stylized approach to the story which sometimes overstepped the finer points of the actual storytelling. I appreciate the risks it took but they didn't always pay off.

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Because he's the Miz, and he's awesome!

Let's be bad guys.

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Baz Luhrman turned a novella whose impact depends on the way we only ever see Gatsby through Nick's eyes into a 140-minute epic that spends far too much time on Gatsby for him to be at all mysterious.

He then took Fitzgerald's clear but understated bits of symbolism and presented them in the most heavy-handed way possible, which left little to no room for the audience to interpret things for themselves. (The green light even has an entire song sung about it by Florence + the Machine!)

Luhrman also included modern music, which is an interesting idea but not one that worked for most viewers. First, some of the modern songs just aren't very good and, second, the film feels tonally awkward because far fewer modern songs appear in the second half than in the first.

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Excellent and interesting points.

Gatsby is unquestionably one of my favorite books of all time. I am drawn to romanticism, ambition, and tragedy. I completely enjoyed this film and have watched it many times. The DVD extras are spectacular. Baz goes into great detail about his choices. The talent it must take to conjure and develop this film from the novella is astounding.

That said, I do agree the film is unbalanced. Baz pushes to hard and his style to strong for a delicate and classical story. But it is great to watch and surely much more fun than another Iron Man or comic book film.

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It's a terrible movie based on a terrible book. The only reason it got any praise is through a combination of the Hollywood establishment's blind loyalty to socialist agitprop combined with their ironic obsession witj burning millions and buying reviews trying to convince themselves that DiCaprio isn't the worst actor on earth.

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