I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Christmas afternoon. I was with my mom and sister and I hadn’t seen the Cobble Hill theater that crowded since sometime back in 261 days (like maybe on the day I saw Batman & Robin for Tyler Didin’s Birthday). Anyway here are the good things about Benjamin Button:
The premise is cool. A man who gets yougner instead of older. That’s pretty original, and you can vaguely recognize Brad Pitt’s face in the little mini-oldman version of Benjamin. It looks pretty cool and I gotta give it up for that.
Cate Blanchett is pretty hot. I always thought of Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth and shit. In this movie she’s a ballerina and shit, and frankly she seems like she’s a pretty attractive woman.
Julia Ormond is in this, which is pretty random. First Knight, Legends of the Fall, Benjamin Button. It’s been a while but apparently she is still alive.
The parts where Benjamin is in Murmansk or whatever. I thought the part where he was in Russia in that hotel was pretty good. Tilda Swinton is a good actress and that’s an original setting, so that was something there.
Once again, since I don’t want to be totally negative, the first hour or soo was pretty cool. Actually, all the parts where Benjamin looks old are pretty good. People sort of realize that he’s not the age that he looks, but he still looks old so it’s kinda cool. Old lady is like “Hey, stay away from my granddaughter” and then his ‘mom’ is like “You’re my little boy even if you look really old” and shit. It’s a cool concept.
Here’s what is bad about the movie:
Cate Blanchett is a slut. Yea Daisy, you act like a little slut piece and Benjamin waits for you (sort of). Sounds a lot like Jenny and Forrest Gump, which makes total sense.
The whole scene where Daisy gets injured in Paris: One little thing happens and then it effects this other thing and then this other thing happens and it plays into this series of events and these other things happen and isn’t it crazy how life is like this and all these random small events can add up to a bigger thing and this is HOW LIFE IS!!! No, there’s a movie called Amelie, and it is ALSO set in Paris and it’s actually good. You just ripped it off. Actually, this idea was explored in a movie starring Ashton Kutcher called the Butterfly Effect. If you are copying an Ashton Kutcher movie you are not adding anything to humanity.
I appreciate the fact that this is some sort of modern day fairy tale. This movie does not exist within the exact realm of reality as we know it. However, it takes place over the course of many years, basically covering WWI thru WWII and then the 50s, 60s, etc. Like Forrest Gump, only it started a few decades earlier. Luckily, our hero, Benjamin Button grew up in a 1920s New Orleans that was completely and utterly absent of racism. As we all know it was totally normal to run into black pygmies in 1920s Louisiana and then ride the streetcar with them.
Queenie. Listen, I bought this character for quite a while. And then she degenerated into “black woman stereotype mother.” “Oh Benjamin, yous lookin so good boy. I ams yo MAMA. I thinks you oughta see this Daisy girl. I is no longer a real human being.” (Again, this is my personal opinion so don’t think I am calling the filmmakers racist.)
The sequence at the end where we get the “everybody’s different but isn’t THAT what makes us truly special” montage. Some people get younger, some are artists, some dance, some swim the English channel and shit. GUESS WHAT?!! Some people make stupid ass movies: their names are David Fincher and the Gumpian writers of this nonsense. Listen, you robbed Shwashank and Pulp Fiction about 15 years ago so why are you going around writing a less good version of your old stupid story.
Personal thought: I sat against the wall in the last seat of my row in the theater. I continually smacked my head against the wall, so as not to gouge my brain out with some sort of spontaneously-invented implement. Some people, any by “some” I mean a handful of mentally challenged adults, in the theater clapped at the end of this movie. Eileen immediately turned to me and was like “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK ARE THEY CLAPPING AT?!!” At least, that’s what the expression on her face was saying. And this was totally unsolicited.
Objectively speaking, Benjamin Button was a stupid dumb movie that was kinda likeable at parts. I give it two and a half stars out of four. A cool concept that got bogged down in retarded stupid shit that uninformed moviegoers might find original and moving.
Maybe I’m just cynical.
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