“Tell your stupid story . . . and die already!” – Elaine Benis on the English Patient
Benjamin Button takes you on a long, pointless journey with a passionless void of cliched themes and uninspired screen-writing. So many other critics have labeled this a rip-off of Forrest Gump, but as this film was based on a Fitzgerald work, I guess it would be the other way around, in essence. Either way, comparing this to Forrest Gump is like comparing Throw Momma From the Train with Body Heat – there is no direct comparison. It’s lazy criticism and knee-jerk journalism. Since I caught this after it was released and heard the comparison, I started to dissect that theory, and really, with the exception of it being about a challenged man’s life, there endeth the comparisons.
On its own, Benjamin Button sucked, it was too long and quite boring. It was well acted, or rather it was well animated with some pretty good voice-overs by Brad Pitt as the lead. The whole film I kept waiting for something interesting, something really important, to happen – anything with real dramatic oomph, there were some moments that arguably fit, but nothing that really slammed home. Every chance the film had to be great, it just sort of petered out into nothingness, there were some moments where I felt a crescendo building and then, pianissimo – nothing. I kept re-writing the script in my head, this is what I would have done here, here is how I would have made this scene more imaginative and lively, for example. Whenever I find myself doing that to a film, it is because I am bored or disgusted. Since I shelled out my own cash for Button, I was both.
I was expecting a lot and was left with the biggest ‘who cares’ ever. Missing from the story was a pivotal antagonist, everyone knows to tell a great story, you need a good antagonist. Benjamin Button had me pining to hit the fast forward button throughout! I like all manner of movies, I like chick flicks and dude flicks equally. My only real criteria for movies is that they keep me interested or entertained at least 90 percent of the time. With Button, I was neither, maybe about 10% of the time I was entertained and for an almost three hour run time, that is just unacceptable.
I think we have another Atonement here, where people just fawned all over the movie, but only because it seemed “too good to fail”. Ya know, I call them like I see them, and Button was not good, I wouldn’t recommend it to my friends, oh I know I will hear from others about the Academy Awards for Visual Effects and Makeup – yes, clearly makeup is something I give two shits about when I enter a theater. Also, Button beating Iron Man for visual effects says everything I need to know about the Academy – in a word, obsolete. Even Mrs. Swift thought it was friggin boring and way too long, and last time I checked, she’s a chick and loves films like Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (two films that I would rather have a root canal than see all the way through). So, for her to say it was boring, whoo boy, it wasn’t just me. And for the record, we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of films, but on Button we both agreed; it stunk.
I’ll grant the film this, it had an interesting way of telling the story from Button’s persepective, but the twist was so predictable even the slowest of wits could have picked up on the supposed zinger, which no doubt created some of the mock Hollywood fawning. Save this one for someone else to shell out the cash if you must see it, but either way, you will still be wasting time and time is money.
On a side-note, Phillip Morris must have produced this “period” piece; there was more smoking in this movie than The Longest Day.
