The Great Gatsby aka The Great Gooby, Da Grea' Gatzbay, Moulin Rouge part 2

J.D. Salinger banned any film adaptations of Catcher in the Rye. Even in his will, he forbids any future adaptations. I say this because Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby are very similar to me. I like them both, but I don't love them. I'm not going to act like Miss Literary Genius here.They were very controversial when they first came out, but now they are kind of dated. I don't say that because its old. Shakespeare's plays isn't dated and Lord of the Rings isn't dated. They both also wouldn't make good movies. Not all books are destined to become movies. Books like Harry Potter, LOTR, comic books and whatever work for their own reasons. This is the fourth time they tried adapting Gatsby. I really wish Fitzgerald did the same thing Salinger did.

So lets list the problems

• The music. Why. THE HELL. did it JUST HAVE TO HAVE rap, techno, dub-step, whatever- in a TIME PERIOD known for great music. THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Did the studio just think this movie needed Jay-Z and Fergie to get a younger audience in? They had the potential to have a great soundtrack and missed it by a mile. Bioshock Infinite (and I have been really obsessing over this game lately) did a great job taking both old and new songs and making it blend seemingly into the background of 1912. NINETEEN TWELVE. They have covers of songs like "Girls just wanna have fun" and "Tainted Love" and you hardly notice. They also include songs from that time period. SO WHY COULD A VIDEO GAME DO THIS SUCCESSFULLY AND NOT A MOVIE. The Gatsby soundtrack is pretty bad and takes you out of the scenes completely. It creates the feeling that it more of a 1920's high school theme party instead of actually being in the 1920's.   

                                --Which cover seems to be more fitting into a certain time period to you? --

 

•  This really does feel like Moulin Rouge part 2. Same cinematography, same editing, same acting, same characters, same theme about how love sucks, same everything. For god's sake, they even had Nick typing out the story and doing closeups on what he was writing just like what Ewan McGregor does. WHY?! "because having him just narrate it is cheesy" THAT'S WHY THIS BOOK IS HARD TO ADAPT AND PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE GOD EHFIUEWGIUYVYWFYEWY-
  Anyway, Baz Luhrmann directed both of these movies and it really does show. As a mini review for Moulin Rouge, I thought the first half of the film was good, then it just drags and drags and drags. Gatsby also drags on random scenes that do not emphasize the story.

•  It exaggerates on some things but not important things. Apparently if you want to learn how to really exploit symbolism in your film you should take lessons from Luhrmann. How many shots were there of Doctor T.J. Eckleberg's eyes? One of the more disappointing scenes was the party at Tom and Myrtle's flat. Ten minutes are spent showing the party. 1 second at the end shows slapping Tom slapping Myrtle. The book, he punches her and breaks her nose, which really sums up their relationship right then and there. BUT NOPE THAT'S TOO HARSH WE GOTTA BE HIP! I'm not going to ramble on and on about what the got right from the book and where they took liberties; there's not enough room on the internet. The problem a lot of people had with the Robert Redford version of Gatsby was that it was way too close to the novel. Here it is just all over the place.

• Gatsby is a tragedy. So what is with all the quirky crap. It just wasn't....funny.

• Carey Mulligan as Daisy is too young. And why do we see her kid once?

• Having this film in 3D seems to be really ironic. I'm sure Fitzgerald would down more gin if he saw this happening. 

• I don't know what the hell they were going for with the green screen in the background, but it looks cheap and terrible. The whole "We're trying to make it look like a 20s movie" isn't cute anymore. 

Gatsby is not all that bad though, it is just okay. There are a lot worse book-to-film adaptations out there (I'm looking at you, Watchmen).  It is a very challenging book to adapt since it is very vague and there is a lot of scenes that just don't work in the movie world. The best part is probably the performances, the whole cast did a good job. Leo and good Spider-man did an awesome job of bringing their real life bromance to the big screen. I was expecting something over the top and lame once I found out they were remaking this and who the director was. I was at least hoping it would be funny with how over the top it was. Instead, it was just awkward. I wish for such an old, classic novel they took the more traditional route of making it instead of making it trendy. It is not like not that many people have read this ya'know.
The Great Gatsby is said to be one of the most grammatically correct novels of all time, and damn did the filmmakers do a good job of dumbing it down.