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First of all this is not as boring a movie as I heard it was. Also,
at this showing of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, no one walked
out which I had heard happens a lot.
Yes, it is
long--overlong--at 2 hours and 40+ minutes with a lot of unnecessary
scenes and shots and way too many off screen narratives. There is one 5
minute scene--about an accident that takes place and how random life
and decisions are which is a movie in itself and would make a powerful
movie but this movie isn't it.
Benjamin Button, the movie, is
intriguing not because of the acting--more about that in a minute--but
because of the make up and special effects. Is that Blanchet doing her
own dancing or a body double? How do they make Pitt look so old and so
young? Who is playing them at different stages of their life? Too many
scenes are, obviously, shot on a sound stage, distracting from the
scenes themselves.
Why did Pitt get a best acting nomination and
Blanchet didn't get a best actress nomination?? I think Pitt shouldn't
have gotten one because he does very little acting--the make up and
digital effects are his performance. Blanchet as an old dying lady
probably has the longest death scene in Hollywood history--she is dying
for all 2 hours and 40+ minutes--and incomprehensible during most of it.
Too
many accents ruin the dialogue. In the case of Jared Harris, who plays
the tug boat captain, garbles, mumbles and makes it impossible to know
what he is saying. Tilda Swinton does okay as a love interest while
Taraji P. Henson, nominated for a best supporting actress, takes us
back to Butterfly McQueen, Stephan Fetchitt, stereotype negros of the
30s and 40s.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story is not well served
here. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is more of a show off project
of the director, digital technician and make up artists BUT it is not
boring! :o) Neither is it epic story telling, a love story that will
move you or Oscar worthy.
