THE GREAT GATSBY REVIEW: Not living up to its name

After reading "The Great Gatsby" for the first time in high school, I had high expectations for its movie adaptations. After all, its a compelling story about love and the American Dream against the a bewitching backdrop of the 1920s. Gatsby was a rather disappointing portrayal of what I thought was a great book. But every movie has it pros and cons and here they are.

THE PROS

1. GATSBY

Gatsby was my favourite part of the book and he continued to be my favourite part of the movies. He's by far the most intriguing character. Leonardo DiCaprio was the perfect cast as Gatsby. He's exactly as I imagined him while reading the books. The hair and the signature smile especially. He had solid acting in this movie, nothing extraordinary. Nevertheless, Leo's the one who kept me going during the more painful parts of the movie, which I'll get to later.

2. NICK

Although I don't like him as much as I like Gatsby, Tobey Maguire was a good cast as well. He's always been more of a Nick Carraway than a Spiderman. Maybe it's just his face, but he's a fantastic fit as the quiet, observing bystander. He's especially skilled when it comes to playing awkward people. This is highlighted during the first time Nick is shown meeting Tom and Daisy. He's timid and clumsy, and this is prominently shown by Maguire in contrast with Tom's aggressiveness. His acting here authentically embodies the character of Nick and makes his scenes more enjoyable.

Me and the boys

3. Landscapes and Special Effects

A lot of the landscapes and scenery in this movie were really well done. I especially like the Valley of Ashes. It did a great job of capturing that gray, gloomy wasteland on the way to New York. The grandeur of Tom's house, Gatsby's house, and New York in general were were shown flawlessly as well. I really appreciated those landscape shots because they perfectly established the magnificence of the areas

Some of the special effects were also kind of cool. For instance, in the final scene, there's this beautiful shot of the green light pulsing across the bay, and even though I know its VFX, I still love it. It lends visual beauty to what is already an enchanting symbol.

4. OLD SPORT

Not really much else to say.

THE CONS

1. EDITING

I haven't seen editing this sloppy since my parents' vacation slideshow. The scene that's most infuriating is the Dinner scene. For some reason, the editors think a scene of people talking can't last two seconds without a cut, like this a fight scene from a Captain America movie. Those probably have longer cuts, honestly. The editing of this conversation speeds it up so fast it's impossible to keep up and become invested in what they're saying. Whole sentences fly by like race-cars in the Indy 500 and before you know, they're gone. It was edited so horribly I had to pause the movie and pull the scene up on YouTube, because I was convinced the movie I was watching was sped up. There's some other problems, like with the car scenes, but I'll get to that later.

What we see V.S What the editors see

2. NICK AND THE PSYCHOLOGIST

Right off the bat, you're shown Nick talking to a psychologist or something an acting all weird and distant and talking about Gatsby. Apparently, the summer's events had had such a horrible effect on him, he has some sort of mental issues or something. This doesn't work because for me I've always interpreted Nick relationship with Gatsby to be fascination of his optimism and perseverance, while the movie says that Nick was so completely obsessed with him that his loss made him go crazy. I get that the loss of friend's being hard, but this whole mental thing was a little over-dramatic for me. Not a welcome change.

3. THE GODAMN CARS

The cars. Oh my god, the cars. Why? Why was there so many cars scenes in this movie? Why is there a freaking race scene in the middle of this movie? Was it Vin Diesel's idea? Has the Fast and the Furious franchise finally run out of ideas and decided to make a 1920s reboot? At least those movie try to make things interesting. Here is was two of the same car gunning it in straight line. The race scene goes on for way too long and it just sucks. There's also that scene of Gatsby driving with Nick and the ADR and the background for that scene is just awful. Cars 2 was better than this.

The man who inspired it all

4. SOME OF THE MUSIC

Ya like Jazz? Yea, I do, especially when it's in a movie set in the golden era of Jazz. Why am I listening to Jay-Z when I could be listening to something that actually fits the movie? Better question. Who made Jay-Z the executive producer of music for this movie? And why would they ever think that would be good idea for a movie set in the 1920s. Anachronism doesn't work as well in the reverse. Everybody knows that.

4. DAISY AND JORDAN

Kind of nitpicky, but the girls weren't cast as I imagined and it kind of threw me off. I pictured Daisy like Queenie Goldstein from Fantastic Beasts (let's pretend I haven't watched that) and Jordan... I don't know but the Elizabeth Deckibi just reminds me of a tall Gina Linetti and I don't really like it.

THE VERDICT

Got some things right but had a lot of lame things I couldn't overlook. Especially when they change the book negatively. Should've said old sport more.