The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Advantages: A Hauntingly, Beautifully Filmed Epic of Time
Disadvantages: A Little Too Long

...epic of time. It tells the tale of a child born suffering the weaknesses of old age who lives his life backwards, growing younger with every year that passes. A long line of screenwriters have attempted to put this story to film but Eric Roth takes the famous author's premise and creates a more elaborate, beautiful narrative than the short story could ever convey. The film is set in New Orleans, a city known for its endless colour, gentle ways and ...
...sees how disfigured and withered the child's appearance is. Unable to cope with the image in front of him he relinquishes the child on the steps of a rest home where the lovely Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), a loyal and loving black employee takes him in. Among the old folks Queenie brings the child up and he is not out of place with the other patrons. Bent, half-deaf, losing his hair, sat in a wheelchair and covered in age spots, the doctor is convinced ... Read review

Advantages: Moving, Emotional, Sensitive
Disadvantages: A little Long and Slow

...circumstances; he was born into the body of an old man with aching joints and wrinkled skin and blindness, an ailment which led to his parents leaving him on the doorstep of a local borstal. After a wild night out a young woman finds the crying baby and decides to offer him a place to stay with her as well as her love, despite being told by doctors that he will surely die within weeks. However, the baby grows stronger everyday and appears to be getting ...
...his life can never be the same as others and it takes on its own very unique twists and turns. The Curious case of Benjamin Button is an example of that rare thing in Hollywood; it is a great piece of story-telling. It takes an unusual premise and runs with it, creating a magical and emotional journey that charms, intrigues and moves in equal measure. It is gorgeously rendered, perfectly acted-out and sumptuously written with a huge amount of heart ... Read review

Advantages: Entertaining, Thought Provoking, Deep, Eye opening and worth watcing
Disadvantages: Some things done before in other films

...just how caring he was. The older I got the younger his looks got. We had a wonderful friendship and as we talked we shared stories of memories that we both had. He used to work on a boat and his adventures were fascinating. He watched many of his friends die and yet he still lived. He had a lonely life, but through it all he kept his faith. I was born to dance and unfortunately our paths separated for some time until one day a terrible accident ...
...is a short synopsis of the plot, but I don't want to carry on and spoil it for you. I feel after watching the film that I have actually got to know Benjamin personally and each character shared their life with the viewer. This is a heart warming and lovely film the kind of film that only comes along once in a life time. I feel very privileged to have watched it. I watched it on DVD, but was sad to see there was no special features. It would have ... Read review

Advantages: Its over
Disadvantages: Hyped up Oscar bore

...defined by its opportunities... even the ones you miss". ----------------------------------------------- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the worse case scenario for the professional film critic, which isn't me, of course. Its not that it's particularly bad or anything but what it represents. It's strategically released around the awards season in February so the movie press can go along to the freebie junkets and parties and pick up their ...
...stuff about it, and with the studios full PR machine behind the film low-and-behold it gets loads of nominations! Everyone in the business knows it's a very average movie but it cynically fits all the nomination criteria - painstakingly long, dressed with at least two huge A-List stars and intelligent enough to smugly alienate the proletariat to make the Academy feel cleverer than their public by picking it. This is nothing new of course and we have ... Read review

Advantages: Brad Pitt, ageing process
Disadvantages: Story didn't really go anywhere

...I had high hopes for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Firstly Brad Pitt was in it (how could it possibly be anything but great) and secondly it has been nominated for so many awards that I was really looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately, although I found it good, it?s not a film I would go and see again and would not really describe it as a classic in my opinion. The film is a love story, that much is certain, a love story across the ...
...found relationships and friendships across the ages. I think the reason why I didn?t love it is because to me nothing really happened, the film just sort of moved along with nothing much to the story and at times dragged a bit I thought and was probably a little bit too long. At one stage my husband and I turned to each other and just sort of felt a bit bored. That?s not to say however that the film was not wonderfully made and well presented. The ... Read review

Advantages: great actors
Disadvantages: a little long

...The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a film that I had heard so many mixed reviews on I thought that it was about time that I watched what everyone was talking about and if it was worthy of the awards that it received. With Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett playing the main roles in the film, they story picks up from 1918 where Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a baby born in an old person's body, who to start looks ugly and struggles with life who then get younger instead of older as a role reversal to everyone else and how their life normally pans out. A brief summary of the story is a blind man is commissioned to create a clock to hang in a train station, upset by the news of his son's death in WWI, he creates a clock which runs backwards to try and restore all the lives of loved ones. One day a young mother passes away after... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Everything. It's got depth, good characters, good plot, its well thought out, thought provoking...
Disadvantages: You have to pay attention... That's it. No half watching this film.

...feature that we never know the narrator's name, and that the directors put single frame flickers of Tyler in before he even enters the film. Norton, Pitt and Bonham-Carter all had stellar performances, especially Pitt, who I would say, until The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, never acted so well. Throughly satisfying movie. Criminal to miss it.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: brilliant story and solid acting
Disadvantages: not enough kevin spacey!

...It's hard to imagine that Se7en first came out 14 years ago as it still, to me, one of the best pyschological thrillers in film and one that all the recent decent cop/ thriller films should look to as a standard setter. This film helped launch David Fincher's career as a director before he went on to direct Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002) and Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008 - see one of my earlier reviews for this brilliant film). Yes, it seems he does like working with Brad Pitt! Se7en is set in a crime ridden US city and stars Morgan Freeman as the weathered and retiring detective William Somerset, Brad Pitt as the new keen recruit David Mills and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pitt's wife (most of you will know that they were a real-life couple during this time also). The film throws us into the deep end straight and we are confronted... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful