prameetkumar

Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" adapts the autobiography of Jordan Belfort, a high-rolling stockbroker selling penny stocks and committing securities fraud. It's an excellent movie, but I imagine most conversations about it will undoubtedly center around two things -- its length (clocking in at about three hours) and its obscenely gratuitous displays of moral depravity (much of the three hours revolves around sex and drugs).

Fresh from his portrayal of Jay Gatsby in Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Belfort, a very similar character in many respects. Both are self-made playboy millionaires engaging in shady business dealings, living on Long Island's Gold Coast, and throwing wildly extravagant parties. But Belfort can perhaps best be described as Gatsby taken to the extreme of hedonism -- with a penchant for hookers and blow, battling an addiction to Quaaludes. DiCaprio gives a ferocious performance as the figurative wolf on Wall Street (the savagery of his speeches to his employees and the intensity of his drug-addled rampages both border on having almost animalistic fury), and odds are high that this is the role that will finally earn him his Academy Award for Best Actor.

While Belfort allows himself indulgence upon indulgence with his lifestyle, so too does Scorsese with his filmmaking. There are countless scenes of sex-crazed stock brokers, cocaine-fueled orgies, and naked blonde bombshells. The novelty of the debauchery wears off quickly, and it veers toward becoming boring and repetitive over the course of the three hours. Despite the film featuring so many orgasms, there is no climax to its narrative arc. There is no moral or psychological growth in Belfort's character. Don't expect repentance; there's just more and more degeneracy.

But these concerns don't get in the way of how entertaining the movie is from start to finish. The black humor of screenwriter Terence Winter's script adds constant hilarity to even the most morbid situations and helps with the pacing of the film. Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie give stellar supporting performances as Belfort's business partner and wife, respectively.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is easily one of Scorsese's most ambitious films, one of DiCaprio's most memorable roles, and one of the best movies of the year.

9/10 stars.

I watched this film with a sort of tender curiosity.

It was deliciously excessive and exaggerated, as expected from a Baz Luhrmann production. Leonardo DiCaprio made Gatsby his own ("Old spor'!") while retaining a feeling of familiarity. The screenplay was a faithful adaptation and even helped me understand some of the novel's themes more clearly. And though you'd think hearing dubstep during the Jazz Age would be jarring, the soundtrack worked very well.

But I couldn't love it. And it's (mostly) Tobey Maguire's fault.

Gatsby loomed so large in the original story that it's not hard to forget all about Nick. But it can be argued, and often is, that it was Nick and not Gatsby who was the protagonist of the novel. Fitgerald's story, told from Nick's first-person point of view, was only as good as Nick's narration; Gatsby was only so great because Nick viewed him that way.

Unfortunately, Maguire fell completely flat in his role as narrative guide. There was always so much else going on and so much of Luhrmann's dreamscape to absorb that Maguire seemed to get lost in it all. And — with him — so did the viewer. Without a strong presence from Maguire, Nick was relegated from having a role as interpreter of events to being just another character (and a rather unimportant one at that).

Luhrmann tried to maintain Nick's narrative frame by having him tell the story — first as a patient speaking to his doctor at a sanitarium, then as a writer trying to explain his grief through prose. But those scenes came across (at best) as heavy-handed expository or (at worst) as Maguire's uninspired take on an abridged audiobook version of "The Great Gatsby."

I wanted to love this film. I really did. It had so many wonderful qualities. But with no Nick (only a Tobey) to help make sense of the people and events, "angry, and half in love with {it}, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best superhero story is an origin story. Comic books can get complicated, with too many villains and alternate universes to keep track of. The stories everyone remembers are the simple ones. Superman was sent to earth just before his home planet of Krypton was destroyed. Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by a mugger, and he used his wealth to transform himself into Batman. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man after his uncle was murdered.

'The Amazing Spider-Man' is a fine origin story. Marc Webb does a good job of telling the tale. Andrew Garfield makes a convincing Peter Parker. The problem, though, is that we were told this story just a decade ago. Not enough time has passed for it to be retold.

I went into the movie trying not to compare Sam Raimi's 2002 'Spider- Man' with Webb's reboot. I soon realized the task would be impossible.

Tobey Maguire (2002) as Peter Parker had a more natural and believable progression into the role of Spider-Man than Garfield (2012) had. This wasn't a fault of Garfield or a credit to Maguire, but a failing of the new script.

The succinct words of Cliff Robertson (2002) as Uncle Ben -- 'With great power comes great responsibility' -- had much more of an impact than those of Martin Sheen (2012) -- "If you have the ability to do some good in this world, you have a moral obligation to do so."

J.K. Simmons (2002) as J. Jonah Jameson was a much more memorable supporting character than Denis Leary (2012) as Captain Stacy.

Even the typical scene of New York solidarity was done better in the older film. Someone in a crowd of New Yorkers shouting, "You mess with Spidey, you mess with New York! You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!" (2002) was more touching than a group of crane operators who aligned their machines to provide Spider-Man with a path to swing through the city in the climax (2012).

The only thing that was undeniably better in the new film was the addition of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Stone is an amazing actress who simply lit up every scene she was in.

Garfield did his best; indeed, he makes a great Peter Parker. And Webb did his best; 'The Amazing Spider-Man' is a great origin story.

But we had a slightly better one just ten years ago.