Benjamin Button

[Dick Whitman]

I am not sure how I feel about the ending. There is nothing particularity bad about it. But they seemed to just take the premise to its
(too?) obvious conclusion. Seeing him as a kid was just going through the motions.

Those scenes just felt off. Perhaps because its the point in which Brad Pitt no longer appears. The character of Benjamin seems to disappear with him. I would rather had his later years and death been left a mystery.

Its hard to imagine that no one at the nursing home would have noticed a shrinking and de-aging child. The only child living there! Someone should have thought that the 5 or 6 year old boy who first moved in went missing. While a seemingly elderly man getting younger would be easier to go unnoticed.

 

[Morpheus 02]

this movie was absolutely fantastic!
I'm no movie reviewer, but I can confidently say that this is the best movie of the year


"I ever tell you I got hit by lightnin' seven times?"

The people in our audience eventually were cracking up the moment that guy spoke, as they anticipated the next scene, filmed like a 1912 movie.

Did they actually show all 7 times? i thought i counted only 6. If so - that might be smart for the producers. Buy the DVD/Blu Ray, and get to see number 7!

 

[TheSeeker]

Avoid ALL story spoilers. Going in blind is the only way to experience this movie. And it does answer many of the questions you're thinking about before you go in.

I was lucky enough to go in this way. Living in Bucharest I get almost no movie previews unless I go to the movies or go online specifically to look at them so I knew nothing about it.

When I was in Miami over Christmas I met up with a friend and he suggested we go see it. The only thing he told me was that it starred Brad Pitt and was about a guy who aged backwards. I was not disappointed.

Some of the reviewers are calling it this decades Forest Gump (a movie that I still like regardless of the revisionist opinions of that movie that I read on this board at times)...Would you put it in that catagory???

Rob

I thought the movie had a certain Forest Gump quality to it in that it is a story which takes place over decades and is about the life of an extraordinary person. I think that's about where the similarities end though.

Seeing him as a kid was just going through the motions.

Those scenes just felt off. Perhaps because its the point in which Brad Pitt no longer appears. The character of Benjamin seems to disappear with him.

Well considering he was suffering from Alzheimer's it is sort of appropriate as people who suffer from this disease stop being the person they were.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

The trailer just looked depressing to me, so I took a pass. Glad to hear others liked it, though.

 

[davejames]

If you like movies like Gump or Edward Scissorhands or any other peculiar character studies you'll like this one.

I loved Gump and Scissorhands (and also Fincher's Zodiac), but this one just didn't grab me, except on a surface level-- it was beautifully directed, very watchable, and never dull, but emotionally it still felt a bit flat to me (and I've noticed a lot of other critics have said the same thing). It's a film I can admire... but not really love.

And no, I have no problem sitting still for a movie. I can sit still for 4 or 5 hours without fidgeting if a movie is good enough.

 

[TheSeeker]

it was beautifully directed, very watchable, and never dull, but emotionally it still felt a bit flat to me (and I've noticed a lot of other critics have said the same thing).

Now that you mention it I think I know what you're talking about. Everybody around Benjamin showed a lot more emotion than he ever did in the movie. This may have contributed to a feeling of emotional flatness felt by some. For a guy going through what he was you would expect him to show a little more emotional turmoil.

Still, I think it was part of what made him special. No matter what crap was thrown at him he always managed to handle it with an almost zen-like attitude. I don't think the movie would have been the same if we had seen him railing at his life circumstances the whole time.

 

[vegaslights]

I have to say this was the Best Film of 2008. I saw it Christmas Day and then a few days later and I was completely satisfied. It had me emotionally and visually. It was beautifully directed, well written, well acted. Emotionally saddening in quite a few times throughout the film, and there were other parts that were funny. E.g., the lightning man, as I call him. The make-up effects were really well done and Brad, Cate and Taraji are all worthy of Oscars if you ask me.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I saw this last night and thought it was quite good. Very engaging and great acting by Brad Pitt, and really phenomenal make-up. Really the most obvious choice for the makeup Oscar. Made good use of the premise too.

I agree with the Forest Gump comparisons, the movie just has a similar "feel" to it, even to the scenes of "child-like clueless adult discovering things that are second nature toe veryone else" scenes (of course in Button's case, he actually is a child, but really as far as the way the scenes are presented thats more of a semantic difference). Daisy's character felt similar to Jenny, his boat captain to Lt. Dan, WW2 experience = Vietnam experience, framing device, similar voice-over feeling to the story, and so forth.

 

[suarezguy]

Didn't like it too much, I preferred the short story's lighter (and yet more critical) approach; somehow Pitt in middle age seemed too different, disconnected from his prior old age, because he wasn't very well developed at either stage (there was far too much time before they said "we've caught up with each other at the middle," that felt like the end and it almost was, since they then skipped over much of the rest of his life).

 

[RobertScorpio]

I saw this last night and thought it was quite good. Very engaging and great acting by Brad Pitt, and really phenomenal make-up. Really the most obvious choice for the makeup Oscar. Made good use of the premise too.

I agree with the Forest Gump comparisons, the movie just has a similar "feel" to it, even to the scenes of "child-like clueless adult discovering things that are second nature toe veryone else" scenes (of course in Button's case, he actually is a child, but really as far as the way the scenes are presented thats more of a semantic difference). Daisy's character felt similar to Jenny, his boat captain to Lt. Dan, WW2 experience = Vietnam experience, framing device, similar voice-over feeling to the story, and so forth.

It still feels like GUMP and GREEN MILE, mixed together...

Rob

 

[JoeZhang]

It still feels like GUMP and GREEN MILE, mixed together...

Rob

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1d76506803/the-curious-case-of-forrest-gump-from-fgump44

 

[Mark de Vries]

I saw it last night (it only opened here yesterday), and I really liked it. Beautifully shot, well acted (Cate Blanchett especially) and some nice uses of symbolism (the storms, the hummingbird). The only 'problems' I had was that it dragged a bit here and there (the Murmansk sequence especially) and it wasn't as emotionally gripping as I believe it could have been. But these are minor nitpicks.

Did they actually show all 7 times? i thought i counted only 6.

Yeah, there were six.

 

[Lindley]

Just saw this with a girl I know at a second-run theater. Fun enough film. Not sure it's a DVD purchase, but definitely worth a look.

I did think it could have been edited down a bit. The running time was a bit long.