The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) was very curious indeed, it probably didn’t deserve all the nominations it received, but won what it deserved. Confused yet? It was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and Golden Globes, but didn’t win any GG’s and won Oscars for “Art Direction”, “Makeup”, and “Visual Effects”. These I agree it deserves, but definitely not even a Best Picture nomination.
Sure, the concept is extremely intriguing (originally written as a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald), but the filmmakers didn’t do enough with it. The acting was outstanding, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett both shined. The visual effects were really well done. The music was sufficient; it didn’t stand out as bad or good. Technically, the parts were there, but I still would have changed a few things.
First, this film was missing its sense of real direction. Random sexual encounters occurred numerous times, perhaps due to the fact that the marriages in this film weren’t good examples. The magnet-affected moral compass was troubling to me… The film was lacking in its sense of character development/arc. Benjamin had no direction in life, and the film failed to get past its interesting concept. Second, this film was really LONG. It wasn’t quite 3 hours, but it felt like it. Finally, this film was missing its “X-factor”. The filmmakers seemed to rely on the concept of reverse aging to drive the entire film; this got me watching, but the film gave me nothing to latch onto. It didn’t work and it failed to live up to expectations.
Benjamin Button runs 166 minutes and is rated PG-13. Sure you can show it to kids, but they would probably be bored. I give it a disappointing 4 ramheads out of 10.
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