Review of The Disaster Artist (2017) by Mike I — 07 Apr 2018

This was a pretty entertaining movie but as I was watching it, I had to wonder what someone who had never seen The Room would think of The Disaster Artist. I can't say for certain because I've seen The Room multiple times, know a lot of the backstory of its production, and that helped me understand what was going on. While The Disaster Artist was funny and treated its subject fairly, I think it failed to hit that sweet spot where a hardcore fan would learn something new about The Room and a casual movie viewer would feel that they understand what The Room actually is. I was dying to see The Disaster Artist in theatres but missed the chance; once I saw it as a free rental from the local library, I was kind of glad I didn't spend money to go see this.

There are good scenes to be sure. Zac Efron was amazing as the actor who portrayed Chris-R. If you've seen The Room, Chris-R was probably the only realistic character anyway. The background characters did great. James Franco nailed his performance as Tommy Wiseau. I just felt like this movie dug no new ground for fans. I gave this movie 3 and a half stars because at least it was entertaining and pretty short. The other half star though is for the cheesy late 90s soundtrack.

One last thing. . . if you saw The Disaster Artist and still haven't seen The Room, go see it already.