The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Forest Gump companion movie.

If you're the mood for a Forest Gump kind of movie, then this film will be perfect for you.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is penned by Forest Gump scribe Eric Roth and it shows. This film has exactly the same feel and sentiment as the Robert Zemeckis directed movie. The story is comes across in exactly the same way with the explanation heavy voice-over and the main character, Benjamin, literally in the eye of the storm of some of the most significant events of the 20th century.

Pitt and Blanchett are ideally cast. They breeze through the material. But it's more about good casting than it is career defing performances from these two. There is unanimous talent from all of the supporting cast too.

Benjamin Button is an obvious break away for director David Fincher, someone who has formed a near flawless career with some much darker material. My personal hope is that this is his 'one for the studio' film that would give him further license to carry on making films like Zodiac, Se7en and The Game. Though he's created yet another outstanding film with Bejamin Button, I feel there are a few other directors who would have made near enough the same film with this material... Oh well, at least it wasn't made by Ron Howard...

Something Special

The title of the film is wrong. It should be ‘The Curious film about the Curious Case of Benjamin Button’.

Some films will please some people, others will hate them. I always like reviews which have a ‘You’ll like this if you liked...’

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a film that everyone should watch once in their life. Even a hardened action movie buff like me was moved to tears. For me this movie is up there with Shawshank Redemption, Schindlers List and Titanic.

So on to a review.

Acting, great. Brad Pitt is still someone who I think is under rated. I’ve never seen a film of his in which I didn’t like his performance (I have erased Troy from my mind) and this is one of his best. Cate Banchett is excellent as she invariably is, and the supporting parts all do their jobs well, most noteworthy for me was the fabulous Tilda Swinton in a small role.

Story, brilliant. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that if you’ve only seen the trailer, you’ll be surprised at how much better it is than you thought it would be.

Digital ageing/anti-ageing technology, pioneering. Ok, I don’t know that for a fact, I saw it in X-Men 3, but it was only for a five minute scene. This could pave the way for a whole revolution, if age is not a factor in actors anymore.

Cinematography, immersive. You’ll think it was filmed when it is set.

I have only one criticism. The running time is 2 and a half hours. But it felt more like 2 and a half years. But sometimes that is a good thing; I can always see the scissor friendly hand of studio executives in films nowadays, trying to grind running times down. The theory is that a 1 and a half hour film can be shown twice as many times in a day as a 3 hour film. What they fail to notice, however, is that most of the top grossing films ever are long. Titanic, all the Lord of the Rings films, the first Potter film etc. The sooner they learn that the better.