The Great Gatsby (2013)

Baz Luhrmann is a director who'll probably always have me as a viewer despite the fact that having made five feature films, I love only two, dislike two, and am lukewarm on one.  The two I love?  "Strictly Ballroom" and "Moulin Rouge!"  I can't get enough of these films (especially "Strictly Ballroom").  The two I dislike?  "Romeo + Juliet" and "Australia."  They both feel like Luhrmann had a vision and just plain failed to deliver on it.  That means the lukewarm one is "The Great Gatsby."

I hate feeling so-so about a movie.  It's a boring response.  And it makes a film hard to discuss, because I just don't care.  But there are a few things to discuss, both good and bad, about "The Great Gatsby."

Good:  The stylization.  Like all of Luhrmann's movies post-"Strictly Ballroom," "The Great Gatsby" is a hyperactive kaleidoscope of CGI and kinetic camera movements.  It's a visually dazzling, jazz-era circus.

Bad:  The stylization.  Luhrmann is too focused on the look of the film to bother with the characters or drama.  This is a movie first and foremost about the crazy, computer generated, Roaring 20s.  The story of Jay Gatsby is third. (The hip-hop soundtrack is second.  Jay Z is a producer.)

Good:  Carey Mulligan.  She is captivating.  Mulligan is the standout performance of the movie.  She brings a depth to Daisy that is not explicit in the script.  Her sadness and turmoil is felt in every word and action.

Bad:  Leonardo DiCaprio.  It's mostly his weird accent.  Otherwise, he's fine.  But jeez, that accent is so strange and awful that it becomes a distraction.

Good:  Tobey Maguire's performance.  He plays Nick as a man of many roles.  He's at times paternal to Gatsby, a confidant and friend, and even a hanger on à la Sal Mineo in "Rebel Without a Cause." 

Bad:  Tobey Maguire's narration.  Ugh.  It's like in high school when the teacher would have people take turns reading passages from a book.  It's slow and monotonous and lacking emotion.  His narration picks up a little toward end, but that's the end.  It should've picked up before I listened to it for 2 hours.

Good:  The movie captures the look of the book.  Crazy, CG art deco aside, this is what I pictured when I read the novel.  Kudos to Baz Luhrmann and it art and costume designers.

Bad:  The movie misses the point of the book.  One of the themes of the novel concerns decadence.  Gatsby's parties are empty and meaningless.  They are wasteful.  The parties aren't awesome.  They're sad.  But that does not jive with Luhrmann's hyper-colorful aesthetic.  Instead, Gatsby throws parties he never attends but it's so romantic because he did it all for Daisy.  So when the movie finally takes a turn toward tragedy, it feel very out of place with the first two-thirds of the film.

This will just have to be another Baz Luhrmann movie that is written off as a failed vision.  I sincerely hope that his next project has a significantly smaller budget.  I think he could benefit from having to work around budgetary constraints.  Luhrmann is a smart director but I worry that his vision is so grand that when given the money, he takes the easy way out: computer effects.  Yet, there are some dreadful looking green screen backgrounds in "The Great Gatsby."  

"The Great Gatsby" is a fine film.  If you like hip-hop, it's a good movie to put on surround sound and crank it up.  It's pretty and well made, but all the effort is put into the spectacle.  But without drama and engaging characters, I just don't care and no amount of spectacle can fix that.  It's like a piñata with no candy in it.  It's brightly colored and I had a good time knocking it around.  But when I realized it was empty inside, I have to admit I was disappointed.

6.5 out of 10