The Social Network (2010)

Director: David Fincher

Slick dramatization of the construction and meteoric growth of facebook, as told through a focus on its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

Rather than a Zuckerberg biopic, this movie covers Zuckerberg's initial conception of some of facebook's foundational elements while a student at Harvard, the months he spent building the site, and the year or so immediately after, when the site grew at a freakishly exponential rate to quickly become a global phenomenon. It also happened to make Zuckerberg, then still barely in his mid-twenties, one of the richest people on the planet. The movie also depicts Zuckerberg as pulling a few semi-shady tricks, such as "borrowing" parts of his original concept from a pair of fellow Harvard students and elbowing out his former friend and initial investor in the site, Eduardo "Wardo" Saverin. Woven throughout the film are moments taking place in law offices, presumably a few years after facebook has exploded into a multibillion-dollar company, where Zuckerberg fends off lawsuits from people who seem to have some case for being owed at least some of Zuckerberg's immense wealth from the site.

This was actually the second time I watched The Social Network, and I still have some mixed feelings about it. This is true of all "biopic" or "based on real people and events" kinds of films or TV shows to me - one can never really know where reality ends and "artistic license" begins. And frankly, that's always far more palatable when we're dealing with long-dead people, such as the John Adams mini-series that recently rewatched and reviewed. Not to mention that that show was meticulously researched, based on reams of documentation. The Social Network, on the other hand, is about people who are all still very much alive and barely into middle age. More than that, though, is that there was very clearly some license taken to mold these real people more into more dynamic characters for a dramatic movie, rather than to offer authentic portrayals of them. This "punching up" of people never sits terribly well with me, and I can never shake the notion that many, many people watch such movies and equate it with reality - a very dangerous effect.

With all that said, I want to give my thoughts of the movie mostly as a dramatization. Yes, it has much larger themes that go well beyond the individuals involved, and those transcend however one might feel about using living people's lives as fodder for a scripted drama. My thoughts on the human-centered elements, though, will stay focused on the narrative and cinematic elements.

The Winklevoss twins - just two of several people who sue
Mark Zuckerberg for one reason or another. While the two
seem to have had a case, they are presented as just the sort
of entitled, privileged, and popular figures who stoke
resentment in the film's version of Zuckerberg.

The Social Network is a brilliantly done movie, no doubt. Everything about the story construction, pacing, acting, visuals, and sound is really hard to criticize in any way. Right from the jump, the script (written by dialog showman Aaron Sorkin) is off and running at 100 miles per hour, and within a few minutes, we're able to form a pretty strong opinion about the movie's version of Zuckerberg. Thanks to Fincher's tight, masterful direction, there's a buzz around seeing Zuckerberg pull together tidbits from others, meld them with his own ideas, and frantically employ his elite-level computer programming skills to obsessively build something that has changed life and communication as we all know it. There's not a wasted scene in this 2-hour film, with every one of them either advancing the plot or revealing something about the characters. This is unsurprising, given that the director was David Fincher - a man behind many great movies, including Fight Club, Se7en, and Gone Girl.

The dramatic elements are, I must admit, brilliantly crafted. I do want to emphasize that word - "crafted." While these are based on real people and real events, I didn't have to do any research to be pretty sure that the characterizations, words, and specific actions of every one were either exaggerated, massaged, or completely fabricated in the name of drama. I must say, though, that it works really well. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a pretty despicable, insufferably arrogant little man. His general intelligence and genius as a computer programmer are undeniable, but the movie makes it abundantly clear that its version of him is a guy who, shunned by his girlfriend, basically creates facebook in the throes of a petulant, misogynistic hissy fit. There are some glimmers, especially early in the movie, of a person who does have grander ideals about opening up communications to the betterment of humankind, but these aspects of his character are mostly kept on the backburner. For the most part, Zuckerberg is shown as a guy who feels spurned by women, condescended by richer and more popular people, and who is more interested in being right than in truly being loved. It's not exactly novel to dream up the "nerd who holds a grudge against those who overlooked him," but it is an interesting paradox to show that nerd become wildly rich and famous by building a system that is meant to help people open up to one another. And therein lies some of the depth of the movie. Made in 2010, only about five years after facebook's initial launch on a large scale, the world was still only just coming to realize that social networking sites were not exactly the utopias of human connection that many had hoped and believed they were or would be. And now, a solid 15 years after facebook's explosion onto the world scene, the questions it raises only become more imposing.

Whether through vicious put-downs or just his general
demeanor and posture, Eisenberg radiates condescension and
impatience during nearly every second of this movie. I'm no
great fan of the real Zuckerberg, but it's hard to avoid the
opinion that the movie exaggerated just how dislikable he is.

While Zuckerberg is portrayed mostly as a dislikable, self-involved villain, there is some complexity to him, the other characters, and their relationships with each other. There are more than a few shades of grey running throughout this film, such as who was really in the right when it came to the intellectual property of facebook. The way it's shown in the movie, Zuckerberg was pretty underhanded with more than a few people. At the same time, you can't help but think that most of the people who sue him are over-reaching a bit and not recognizing how Zuckerberg really was doing all the heavy lifting, in terms of the overall concept and the actual coding of the entire thing. The movie also does a good job of constantly presenting facebook as a conundrum. Almost from the jump, its shallow, addictive nature is presented and shown to be coming from less-than-noble elements of human nature. This theme alone makes the story engaging, and it will continue to do so for as long as social media is part of our lives.

A final thought on Aaron Sorkin's writing, and it's the same thought that I express regarding screenwriters who are the "dialog wizards" of the movie world. For a while, the three who have always come to my mind have been Sorkin, Tarantino, and Joss Whedon. Such writers are wonderfully clever and have fantastic minds and ears for snappy, catchy, and often hilarious dialog. Film after film, these writers have provided us with endless "quotable quotes" and memorable scenes, almost always from sharp, witty characters of their creation. However, such dialog magic can often threaten to trump the actual story or anything else happening on the screen, resulting in a sense that moments are contrived or manipulated just so a character can deliver a good zinger that the writer was proud of. It can also result in lines that may not sound natural from the mouths of a particular character. I had this feeling during much of The Social Network, with nearly every single character having just the right lightning-quick, whip-smart retort to whatever someone else says. While it makes sense to have a slighted, genius-level intellect like a Mark Zuckerberg have two dozen back-breaking insults loaded in the chamber at any given moment, it feels a bit less authentic coming from the more mundane, "normal" people in the movie. Sorry, but not everyone in the words has a bottomless bag of quips and biting remarks eternally on hand, and it can strain credibility to present such a world. I have a ton of respect for writers like Sorkin, as they come up with so many genuinely great lines. I just wish they were a bit more economical with them, as the overuse of their witty dialog ends up creating an overly polished sound to the proceedings.

By any standard of a movie in and of itself, The Social Network is great. As a work meant to portray very real, still-living and still-evolving people and events? It can be misleading at best. Either way, it's worth viewing and discussing at least once. 

Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher

Still a great, wild ride of a movie that showcases so many of director David Fincher's many strengths as a filmmaker. 

The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, follows an unnamed protagonist (Ed Norton) whose life has become such a drone that he is a virtual zombie. To paraphrase him, he is never fully awake but can never fully sleep. This continues until a chance meeting with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a whip-smart renegade with the ultimate punk rock sensibility. Durden squats in an abandoned house, refuses to live by any of society's rules, and eventually convinces our protagonist to begin an underground fight club for men like themselves - disenfranchised and feeling like they've been sold a bill of goods by capitalist, consumer culture. Eventually, Durden molds this ostensible underground MMA group into something much more potent and frightening, with our anonymous main character being pulled along in ways that he can't even begin to imagine. 

I can't recall just how many times I've seen this movie, but it's easily in the double digits. I saw it a couple of time in theaters upon its release back in 1999, and would routinely go back to it for many years after. I'd gone quite a few years since a full rewatch, until reading Brian Raftery's recent book Best. Movie. Year. Ever., which catalogs the insane number of great films that came out in 1999. My enthusiasm fully stoked, I snapped up a cheap blu-ray copy of Fight Club and took it all in again. My thoughts about the film have evolved over two decades, but I still find it to be a satisfying, subversive, funny, and extremely well-crafted middle finger to large segments of the film industry. 

In those first years after the movie came out, like a lot of guys in the early and mid-twenties, I saw the Tyler Durden character as an icon of cool. He was a take-no-bullshit badass who just got things done, and seemed to be on the side of righteousness. To slightly paraphrase Durden himself, he looks like you want to look, f***s like you want to f***. He is smart, capable, and most importantly, free in all the ways that you are not. It's a great sales pitch to young men who are in desperate need of leadership, wherever that leadership takes them. Durden's appeal to "enlightened" macho violence is one that is still fully relevant today, with the immense popularity of "smart" MMA bros like Joe Rogan and similar "intelligent" Alpha males who have millions of devoted fans and followers. Chuck Pahlaniuk was onto something when he wrote the novel, and David Fincher was clearly aware of it.

If you need to illustrate the idea of self-destructive anarchy
having sex appeal, then Brad Pitt is a pretty good choice
as your spokesmodel.

What has changed, though, is the realization that being punk rock isn't really the hard part. And looking and sounding cool while doing isn't even the hard part. As calculating and slick as Tyler Durden is, his plan doesn't go beyond "blow stuff up." It's really a punk rock sensibility, which has a very strong appeal in the hands of such a charismatic character. When I watch Fight Club now, I can't help but wonder just how likely it is that Durden's master plan actually works, after the credits roll. Or whether he ends up being happy with Marla. Yes, Project Mayhem's bombs go off, destroying the headquarters of major credit card companies, essentially annihilating debt and giving everyone a fresh start. But will that actually work? And yes, Durden's fractured mind reunifies, and he seems to reconcile with Marla. But they're both clearly still very damaged people. Such grounded thoughts, though, are not what Fincher had in mind. He was looking to tell a raucous tale of a modern anarchist, and he gave us just that.

If the themes are what elevate the story well above just being a sweaty trek through underground fight clubs, then the film technique is what makes the whole show so wildly entertaining. You have three actors in Norton, Pitt, and Carter, who are as good as they've ever been. And the sharp writing is still absolutely hilarious. The look of the movie, along with the editing and cool-as-hell Dust Brother soundtrack bring it all together to give us a movie that's simply a blast to watch.

It's both fascinating and unsurprising that this movie fell on its face when it was released back in 1999. Up until then, there really hadn't been anything quite like it - an in-your-face, crotch-grabbing "screw you" to capitalism lightly disguised by a "pretty boy" actor in Pitt and "up and coming" fresh face in Norton. There were obviously people like me, who saw it in the theaters and loved the dark humor and the deeper themes and ideas, but most people were either baffled, disgusted, or just stayed well away from it. However, you might view Fight Club now - a worthy, dark satire; flawed attempt at profundity; or something else - I think most would agree that there's more than a little solid film technique happening, and that the movie had a serious impact on movies for years to come. 

Retro Duo: Zodiac (2007); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Zodiac (2007)

Director: David Fincher

I actually saw this movie back in 2007 in the theaters and thought it was excellent. That was, however, the only time I had seen it until it popped up as streamable on Netflix about a month ago. After the mood struck me to fire it up, I was reminded of why I had such a high opinion of it a decade ago.

The movie tracks the investigation into the very real series of murders which took place in San Fransisco and other coastal California cities between the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer infamously taunted the San Fransisco police department and media by sending letters to the major newspapers, daring them to try and discover his identity. Zodiac studies the years-long manhunt mostly through an unlikely vessel - San Fransisco Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith. As the Zodiac killer's letters arrive, Graysmith becomes more and more engaged in piecing the clues together to uncover his identity. Despite his many efforts, along with those of several dedicated and skilled police officers, the killer is never actually discovered or captured.

Zodiac is a highly unusual true crime movie, in that is offers none of the tidy satisfaction that many such movies serve up. Firstly, the murders are shown in a completely non-gratuitous way that truly chills one's bones. I greatly admire this approach, which prevents any sort of glamour from being placed on such vicious acts. Secondly, and perhaps most impressively, we do not get the satisfying, step-by-step detective tale that ends with the killer getting his just desserts. The road to identifying and arresting the man responsible is long, leads down many dead ends, and frustrates several good cops and earnest journalists into fits of near-insanity. By the middle of the movie, you can already feel these people's rage and feelings of impotence in the face of a murderer who not only brutally killed innocent people but also took pleasure out of taunting what he saw as the San Francisco establishment.

Telling such a tale in a way that is compelling cannot be an easy task, yet David Fincher pulled it off brilliantly. When I saw it in the theaters, I had a sense that the movie was overly long, though I did find it outstanding. During this second viewing, though, my sense of the movie being long-winded was completely gone. I could now see how each scene has its purpose and serves as its own small chapter in the greater tale. This is thanks to some strong writing and directing, as well as excellent performances all around by reliable actors like Jake Gyllenhall, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and plenty of others. It should also come as no surprise that the cinematography and overall visuals are excellent - aspects of filming which Fincher never gives short shrift.

It's not a happy crime procedural in the vein of modern "Law and Order" shows, to be sure. But this is arguably one of the very best movies about a serial killer that has ever been made. If the topic itself is not too disturbing for you, I highly recommend setting aside the two-and-a-half hours to take this one in.

Cute little Caesar from the first movie
has learned a few hard lessons from life,
and he wears them in his gaze.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Director: Matt Reeves

The second in the modern "Apes" trilogy, this was another surprisingly well-done follow-up to the equally solid Rise of the Planet of the Apes, released in 2011.

At the end of Rise, the exceptionally intelligent (thanks to genetic engineering) ape Caesar had led a large-scale escape of dozens of apes whom had been subjected to experiments and torture. Unbeknownst to Caesar, he and his brethren were also carrying a virus, known to humans as simian flu, which then began infecting the human population.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes picks up ten years after the end of Rise. Most of humanity has been killed by the simian virus. Caesar is the head of a large clan of apes living in an organically-constructed town in the forests outside of San Francisco. Still with him are several of the apes which he initially set free, before the outbreak of simian flu. Most notable are the massive and quiet orangutan Maurice and the still-bitter, tortured, and pugnacious Koba. The apes all live in relative peace, and they haven't even seen a human in two years. That is, until they come across a small group of them nosing around the apes' forests. One human gets spooked and accidentally shoots Caesar's son, Blue Eyes. This sets off a chain of events leading to a fight between an angry contingent of the apes and an enclave of human survivors who have been scraping out a meager existence in the husk of old San Francisco.

As silly as I found the original 1968 Planet of the Apes in many ways, it is extremely difficult to find much that is silly about Dawn. Yes, there are apes running around, riding horses and using guns. On the surface, it can seem completely ridiculous. But the themes of warfare, vengeance, xenophobia, and superiority are all thoroughly relevant, and they are handled with surprising skill here. Thanks in no small part to the stunning visual effects of Weta studios and some amazing motion-capture performances by Andy Serkis and others, even the apes evoke genuine feeling that is often missing from all-human cast, struggle-for-survival dramas. The apes like Caesar and Koba speak in short, simple sentences, but many of their words carry immense weight, given the context, and show thought and emotion with which we can empathize. And since the context is a more primitive world, with very little electricity or advanced technology, the prominence of questions about existence and survival feel completely natural. The resolution blends its action with its drama quite well, with the stakes feeling quite high on both a material and emotional level; this is impressive, given just how much of it involved computer-generated primates.

While I may not feel the need to rewatch Rise or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes again any time soon, I found them both pleasant surprises and very solid films, especially the latter. Perhaps the best praise I can offer is that, while I didn't bother to catch either of the first two in the theaters despite positive reviews, I plan to catch the final installment of the trilogy on the big screen. 

Before I Die #544: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

This is the 544th movie I've watched out of the 1,162 films on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through.

Director: David Fincher

An excellent adaptation/alternative version of a phenomenally successful novel.

Like millions of readers, I got caught up on the "Millenium" trilogy of books by the deceased Swedish author Stieg Larsson several years ago. I found the first book a very engaging and novel look at deep-rooted, institutional xenophobia and misogyny through the lens of a complex murder mystery.

I saw the original Swedish film adaptation that was released in 2009, and I thought it a solid but slightly flawed take on the story. In 2011, we got a rare treat: a U.S. remake that is actually better than the original European version. The improvements can likely be connected to a much larger budget and the direction of David Fincher, a man who is no stranger to telling very dark and complex tales in films.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it mostly follows two unique characters. Mikael Blomqvist is a crusading but embattled journalist who is hired by an incredibly wealthy businessman to potentially solve a 40-year old murder within his large and largely-dislikable family. Also involved is Lisbeth Salander, a tortured and antisocial genius hacker who becomes Blomqvist's research assistant. There are a ton of curious and sordid details that go into explaining how the two become connected, which make for a dark and fascinating story. Fincher's movie ties the many threads together as skillfully as possible, though an unfamiliar viewer will need all of their attention to keep up.

Yes, Lisbeth can be just as wicked as she
dresses. Fortunately, she tends to direct her
scary smart rage towards misogynists. 

Blomqvist and Salander are great characters in their own rights, and they are brought to life by outstanding performances by Daniel Craig and Roony Mara. Not to slight Noomi Rapace, who admirably portrayed Salander in the original Swedish film version, but I found Mara added just a little more bite to the role. The affable Blomqvist and prickly Salander are different in nearly every way but for two important things: their desire to see justice done and their their unwavering energy to see it through. When the two find their causes overlap, we get some extremely satisfying storytelling.

For those unfamiliar with the details of the story, I have to warn you that it goes to many extremely dark places, with graphic detail regarding murder and rape. If you can stomach such things in your fiction, then this movie is well worth watching. While I found the subsequent two novels not as strong as the first, I do hope that the cast and crew of this 2011 adaptation come together for the rest of the series.

So that's 544 films down. Only 618 to go before I can die...

New(ish) Releases: Gone Girl (2014); Horrible Bosses 2 (2014); Robocop (2014)

Gone Girl

Director: David Fincher

A well-constructed, gripping, and bold movie. Gone Girl is also a film that will likely leave you unsure of exactly how to feel when the credits roll.

It is impossible to say much about the plot of the movie without taking away great parts of its strengths. The set-up is thus: Nick and Amy Dunne are in a marriage that has grown painfully stale. What started as a storybook romance has become a dull affair that has revealed each person's worst flaws. On their fifth anniversary, things take a turn for the tragic and strange when Amy disappears, seemingly kidnapped. Nick, though at first not a suspect, increasingly becomes the focus of the investigations for various reasons.

If it seems like this is a fairly standard crime thriller set up, this is because it is. But it is a grave mistake to think that Gone Girl is a typical crime thriller. While it exhibits a number of the tropes typical to the genre, it turns many of them on their heads, while examining several larger, far more interesting and disturbing questions that go well beyond the "Who done it?" force that normally drives such movies.

The technical merits are outstanding, as is true with every Fincher movie that I've seen. The visuals are brilliant, the music enhances the film exceptionally well, and the acting is strong all around (yes, even Ben Affleck is fine). In short, it's a pleasing film to take in, aesthetically.

The movie explores several areas that are grey, dark grey, and eventually pitch black. This is to be expected from director David Fincher, who long ago proved himself unafraid to explore such places, most notably in his early film Se7en. Gone Girl is not for the faint of heart, or those looking for a nice, easily-digestible tale of heroes, villains, and ultimate justice. For that, I commend it, even if I probably never need to watch it again.

Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)

Director: Sean Anders

Just funny enough not to be a waste of time, but it was a tight race.

I really liked the first one. The over-the-top titular "bosses" were cast perfectly, and there was plenty of great banter between them and the trio of likable average Joes played by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day. Such can't really be said of the sequel. Chris Pine and Christoph Waltz do just fine, but the script was far weaker than its predecessor. Pine and Waltz make the most of what they were given, but what they were given wasn't much to speak of.

The story, at least, differs from the original in that the three main shmos are attempting to start their own business. This pits them against Waltz's ruthless billionaire venture capitalist, who thinks nothing of crushing them like insects. Through it all, Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day go through the familiar stages of hope, rage, and panic that produced many of the great scenes in the first film. In part two, however, the chemistry is often out of balance. Where the three main players had previously been lovable, if a tad dim occasionally, in this movie Sudeikis's and Day's characters are stupid beyond belief. Stupid to the point that you wonder how they're even able to function. This idiocy results in a handful of good laughs, but many more duds than the first movie.

I knew not to expect anything great from this sequel, so I wasn't terribly disappointed in it. Just don't get your hopes very high - this will give you just enough laughs to make it worth your while, but no more.

Robocop (2014)

Director: Jose Padilha

While not terrible, this reboot of one of my favorite 1980s action flicks does little to recommend itself. This remake had potential, but most of it went unfulfilled.

It took some serious guts to even attempt a reboot of one of the most iconic 1980's tough-guy action movies. Twenty-seven years ago, Director Paul Verhoeven gave us a fun, ultra-violent action flick that constantly winked at us with its satirical advertisements and fantastic one-liners. This 2014 version played it much straighter, while attempting to inject some of the sly social commentary of the original. Unfortunately, the recent version is nowhere near as clever or entertaining.

The shame of the movie is that so many great foundational elements were in place. The tale of mangled police officer Alex Murphy is compelling enough, and witnessing his transformation into a cyborg war machine is a bit of fun. There's even a really stunning scene in which we see what Murphy looks like without the intimidating, prosthetic Robocop suit. The actors are all top-notch as well. It's tough to go wrong with Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson; and Joel Kinnemann was a solid choice for the title role. However, even these talents could only breathe so much life into a rather lukewarm script. The action is merely OK, as it does nothing to stand out from other blockbusters in the genre.

This movie set itself up for failure, really. Had it not been a remake of such a great movie, it might have been more engaging. As it is, though, one has to question whether it even needed to be made. My answer is "No." At least, it didn't need to be remade in such a bland way.

If nothing else, though, the movie did provide this hilarious interview with Kinnemann on The Daily Show with John Stewart. Start it at the 2:00 mark, and listen to the "Uncle Scotty" story. It had me rolling.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

(This movie is the 513th out of the 1,149 complete list of 'Films to See Before You Die,' which I am working my way through)

Director: David Fincher

Rapid, Spoiler-Free Summary

In New Orleans in 1919, just as the First World War ends, a young boy named Benjamin is born with a puzzling malady. Though a newborn infant, he has the physical decrepitude of a person well into his eighties. Over the ensuing eight-plus decades, Benjamin not only survives, but ages in reverse.

While undergoing his lifelong age reversal, Benjamin has travels and experiences many of the joys and sorrows of human life. He eventually goes off to faraway lands, becomes involved in World War II, discovers pleasures of the flesh, and falls in love. Though few of these experiences is especially unique, Benjamin's odd condition results in a very singular perspective for both him and those who are closest to him.

What Did I Think?

It's not a bad movie, but I'm not altogether sure what the point of it was. And this isn't what you want viewers of your movie to feel when you offer them two hours and forty-five minutes of story.

The idea of a protagonist who ages in reverse is certainly interesting enough. The mere concept begins to raise certain questions about how such a fantastic person would function and interact with others, and how such a condition would affect the perceptions of the inflicted and those who come to know him for long periods of time. We do, indeed get this in the movie right away, as the grotesquely aged newborn Benjamin is immediately abandoned by his father. As Benjamin advances into and through his childhood years, living at a retirement home under the care of the matronly young African American caretaker, the only people who seem to offer him any understanding are the extremely aged with whom he lives.

The 20-something year old Benjamin. The movie flirts
with some interesting themes as we see how people act
towards him, but it never plumbs the depths as much as
it could.

There's certainly a notion here to chew over - how one's physical appearance has much more influence over how others treat us than our words or even actions. Though Benjamin has the size, mental maturity, and behavior of a very young child, none outside of the home looks at him with anything but disgust. The end of the film offers and interesting counter-point to this, when the elderly-yet-childish-looking Benjamin returns to the very same retirement home. When taken together, these bookends of the film may offer the most profound statement that the story has to offer.

And yet, I felt that such poignant themes were lacking. After all, what is the point of having a character like Benjamin is you're not going to use his most distinguishing feature to do some social exploration? And make no mistake - his singular physical condition is his most distinguishing feature, and this is perhaps the biggest weakness of the movie. There's really not much personality to him. Once you get beyond what makes him "curious," you're just left with a plain old nice guy. Hardly anything to spend nearly three hours watching. Which brings me back to the question: if you're not going to imbue him with any outstanding personality traits, then you'd better use him as a foil to examine some more engaging topics. The movie doesn't either one with much imagination or depth.

Another, lesser, issue that I have with the movie stems from the nerdier part of my personality: the physiological aspect of Benjamin's condition. Many viewers probably wouldn't bother to spend energy on this, but I couldn't help question why, at the end of his life, he would shrink down to child-size. He wasn't born the size of a full-grown adult, so why would the reverse happen? Yes, I know that it's all pure fantasy, but I'm just looking for a little logical consistency.

On a much larger scale, is there any possible way that Benjamin would not have been taken away by military scientists to become a lab rat? He never makes much effort to hide his condition, and it's hard to imagine him just coasting through life without at least a visit from parties interested in a walking miracle who may hold the key to the fountain of youth. This is also never so much as mentioned or explored. Would it have killed someone to at least try and insert a touch of consideration for it?

It all comes out as very mediocre. The cinematography is highly polished, so the film is a pleasure to look at. The acting is solid, and the human emotions are sincere and exhibited well. These help carry along a lengthy movie that resulted in, to me, a subtle shoulder shrug.

(513 films down, 636 to go before I die.)