David Fincher Binge Part VI of VII
I’m sure Fitzgerald would be just delighted by this adaptation.
Well… Here’s the harshest manner I can put The Curious Case of Benjamin Button into when it comes to words: this movie is just Forrest Gump with a cover-up gimmick, minus the individualistically absorbing characters, minus the charismatic comedy, and minus the embracive execution that reads into the erraticness of our abilities. Disabled person meets his on-and-off “love of his life” at an early age, check. Disabled person is treated differently because he’s disabled, check. Disabled person narrates his years with Hallmark card quotes, check. Disabled person goes to war, cause, why not? Check. Disabled person has a phony symbolic motif (hummingbird, a feather, etc.), check. Disabled person even has a sailor friend, check! AND IT’S NEARLY THREE HOURS LONG, PLASTERED WITH OUTDATED CGI EFFECTS. Please, get me out of this predictable life-porn movie!
The only element that distinguishes Benjamin Button from others that attempt to just beat us over the head with the same old surface-level, cheesy, convenient, and redundant “notes of life” narrative is, again, its insane premise of having an old man age backwards. Yet, somehow with such an impressionistic concept, this movie finds any possible way to be exactly like everything else of its kind. Even the directing in this is mundane as hell; ten bucks says David Fincher was being held at gunpoint while filming this motion picture. Or, you know, money is money.
So, yeah. Alien 3… or Cubed, you’ve been promoted; you are no longer the worst Fincher flick!
Verdict: C-
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is now available to stream on YouTube, Google Play, Vudu, Amazon Prime, iTunes, and Netflix.
Burning the Celluloid 
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