Review of The Great Gatsby (2013) by Jamie J — 20 Feb 2016

With boundless enthusiasm director Baz Luhrmann turns his attention to adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, tragic love story. Luhrmann always has a certain effervescent style to his films, and this is certainly do different. Visually is is masterful, vibrant and engaging, with brilliant uses of camera effects and bright colours to really draw you in. But if anything in its desperation to wow the audience the film seems to lose a little something in transition.

If you peel away the enthusiastic visual style, and take out the occasional old meets new musical moment The Great Gatsby just feels a little flat, despite having good performances from the majority of its cast, while DiCaprio manages to intrigue as the titular mysterious Jay Gatsby, if anything the standout performer here would be Tobey Maguire, if only due to him having more to work with.

With perhaps a slightly overlong run time The Great Gatsby manages to entertain for the most part, but may well leave a lot of viewers reaching for the off button well before the bleak conclusion. A shame really as it's still the kind of film that Baz Luhrmann can make.