The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Review

I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button even after hearing it was slow.  Well, it was slow, but it was good, but then it wasn't good, but then it was.... as you can tell, I have a hard time deciding what I think of this movie!  Hopefully this review will help clear up my thoughts.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a baby who is born in 1918 with a problem - he is born old.  As a baby he's already got all the problems most people don't get until their 80s or 90s.  His father can't stand to have the "monster" around, so he abandons the baby on the stoop of an old folks home (at least that's what I think it was).  The caretaker there says it's still one of god's creatures and takes in the baby, even though the doctor says he probably won't live long.  However, Benjamin does survive those first fateful years and becomes a young boy with an old outside.  He looks just like the other old folks at the home, he can't walk, he can't see well, you would think he is 90 when he is only seven.  Curiously enough, as the years go by, he physically starts to appear younger and younger.  What will happen to Benjamin?  How will this strange phenomenon affect his life?  Will he ever find love?  After all, who would want to love an old and dying man, even if he is young on the inside?  You'll have to see if you really want to know.

My first thoughts as I watched this movie was - it is SLOW.  Just like i was warned, it was very slow.  I felt like I already knew from previews that he would eventually get younger, but the movie drug it out for so long.  At each year or each age that they portrayed Benjamin, it seemed like I got the point and yet they still went on with that part for 10-15 more minutes.  In other parts, I felt it was slow because of all the chatting.  This person had to tell a story, then that person had to tell a story, and sometimes they talked really slow.  Well I felt most of the stories were interesting, I just wanted them to talk a little faster or make the story a bit shorter.

Exploring the lives of Benjamin and others did make the movie more interesting.  Somehow this movie reminded me of Big Fish in that there were many parts where the story was being told and the scene you saw seemed almost unbelievable, like a fantasy.  As we heard Benjamin's story, along with all the others he encountered, we did have some interesting scenes about all of the different characters that kept the movie well-rounded.  You knew everything about every character for the most part.  That being said, sometimes there were characters that seemed useless.  There was one particular that they meeting on their boat, and he was all about America and telling some story about loving America (I don't remember exactly), but then that character had nothing else to do with the movie.  I kept wondering why they ever introduced him or ever even told us who he was.  There were a few other characters like this in the movie that ended up making it even longer than it needed to be.

Brad Pitt was great as Benjamin Button.  I heard he was actually using his face throughout the whole movie, just sometimes with a different body attached to make it believable. The makeup job was great and it did look like the way he might look in the face when he is older.  At one point I wondered if they would be able to make him look younger than his real life age, and they did pull it off!  Of course, they used some fancy technology for that.  Cate Blanchett was also great as the girl who grew up with Benjamin who ultimately becomes a potential love interest, even with their physical differences.  She mostly played the part of a girl who wanted to live her life as a ballet dancer, but perhaps she didn't know what she really wanted....

I really liked Taraji P. Henson who played the woman who adopted Benjamin at the start.  I thought she seemed so natural in the role of the old-fashioned southern woman with a great heart.  She had no trouble taking in Benjamin as her own, even with his issues at the start.  Her part showed us how we should all act as far as how to treat other human beings.  Other characters in the old folks home added interest to the story as they each had their own past, some of which Benjamin shared during the movie.

The final thing that made this worth watching was the variety.  Benjamin, trying to find his way, experiences many different things in his life.  This is another reason it reminded me of Big Fish.  I felt like Benjamin was on a journey through his life, just like Ewan McGregor was in Big Fish.  He tries his hand at a variety of different things, starting off working on a tugboat when he is still quite old on the outside.  If you were thinking this movie would be like Jack, you'd be wrong.  In Jack, Robin Williams still did kid things even though he looked older.  However, Benjamin doesn't follow the normal path of a kid.  He's more likely to act the age he looks instead of the age he really is inside making him much more mature for his age.

The setting, the music, the scenes were all very well done.  You do feel like you are transported back in time to the early 1900s and it seemed like many of the actions were very true to life to that time period.  It is amazing to think how much things have changed since then!  Had this same movie been made using the current time period, I think I would have still liked it, however there was something nice about this old-fashioned time which almost made the movie more believable.

Outside of it being slow, my final thought is to Recommend this.  I wouldn't bring the kids, they will be bored.  However my mom really enjoyed it and I on-and-off enjoyed it so overall I have to go with recommended, mostly because it was an interesting story.  One thing I do have to say is, the length of the movie was not an issue for me.  I actually LIKE long movies that really get you engaged.  My problem was the slowness. If they had sped things up and still had it at over 2 hours, I would have been able to pay attention much easier than I was.  If you still think you might like it, I say go for it.  But if it sounds boring based on any of the above, you might want to pass.  Enjoy!!