I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same thing: we remembered “Moulin Rouge”, we saw the coming attractions and we thought Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” was gonna be this big gauzy hyper-musical version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s roaring Twenties novel. In 3D no less. Well, we were had.
“The Great Gatsby” is an emotionally mystifying, badly acted soap opera with incongrous music, tedious set pieces a limited cast performing unlimitedly stupid stories. I haven’t read Fitzgerald since High School but I can’t remember it being this bad.
Nick Caraway gets a small house opposite his married cousin Daisy’s mansion in Long Island and bordering Jay Gatsby -man of mystery, mansion, who wants to rekindle his romance with Daisy; meanwhile her husband has other ideas. As portrayed with Tobey Maguire, Leo di Caprio, and Carey Mulligan, this is a typical idiot plot which makes zero emotional sense. Lessee: Gatsby moved into a mammoth house literally across the bay from Daisy and her husband and she didn’t know he lived there? How? It took Caraway ten minutes to figure it out.
Gatsby is such an irritating fool, he keeps calling everybody “Sport” and while it might be a plot point it is amazingly irritating after awhile, it is hard to see what either Steve or Daisy see in the chump. The parties are 3D extravaganzas but hardly much more than that. I’ve been to biger and I don’t even like parties. And as for Carey? This simpering idiot has two powerful men fighting for her attention. She has precisely one good moment, when she ask Nick if he is in love with her. Her amusement is genuinely aristocratic and cool. You see the poster, that’s all the actors (the raven haired chick is there for no real reason, she just sems to be around for geometric reasons)
And the main plot? It beggars the imagination that ANYBODY would get what he wants and blow it over a trifle. Gatsby is an asshole and a fool and Nick a poor reader of character. The entire movie (just about ) is from Nick’s POV, it is really a buddy buddy movie for Tobey and Leo to hang out between trips to Ibiza and nights at nightclubs. Tobey can’t carry this movie. Maybe nobody could but Tobey can’t. And while I understand why Baz uses Tobey’s voice overs all the time, so he can share Fitzgerald’s writing, it is lazy movie making speaking where Baz should be showing.
Visually awesome at times, the New York City of the 1920s is brought to life though not for long enough and the two parties we see are explosions of color and sound though nothing very interesting is happening. Look, you can’t promise a camp masterpiece and palm off “All My Children”. It’s just not on, sport.
Musically, I reviewed the album earlier this week, it is pretty good though very little of it makes its way onto the big screen. Lana Del Rey’s “Young And Beautiful” is the love theme, Beyonce and Andre 3000’s “Back To Black” is used whenever the triangle takes over, “Crazy In Love” is used for the parties. But what a disappointed, I thought the music would take over as grand and epic music videos come to life in shocking 3D
Movie: C
Music: B-