Review of The Social Network (2010) by Amasa G — 24 Oct 2016

This movie was quite incongruous with its trailer. The trailer painted a boring, predictable, straight and dry movie that panders to the pop-culture crowd. This didn't surprise me because, although David Fincher can make a damn could movie, he can also make a few oddly straight and dry ones.

This movie, however, was not one of those movie. The movie had four aspects that really saved it from its fate:

1. The movie benefited from the really good editing. There were a lot of smart speed decisions that were made and a lot of the cuts seemed really natural and didn't leave the viewer behind.

2. The script was really witty and really created its own environment for the movie. The smart dialog built really strong characters in the movie and made the movie pretty fun in general. On a broader view, the plot was also really tight and smart. The only thing that suffered was the idea that the first lawsuit was less important and, halfway through, that narrative kind of fizzled out.

3. The cinematography is usually a pretty important part of David Fincher's movie in terms of mood and what not. I thought that this movie might disappoint in that matter but it didn't. It really was a fairly pretty movie.

4. The music. This movie wouldn't be half as good without the music adding to it. With contributions from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross along with the regular music department, the music created both a chaotic tone for the movie that it sorely needed and a mood that offset the balance that the humor gave it.

Having said that - conceptually there was only so much potential for this movie. David Fincher, cast, and crew met that potential 99.9%. Personally, I would have waited till the David Fincher/ Facebook saga ended before I went and made a movie about it but the relevancy probably helped its box office intake.

Don't let the crappy trailers deceive you with this movie. It's a goodun.