The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

[Matt Tullos]

I would call it, "Leading Character gets progressively younger as Audience gets Older"

I'd give it a thumbs up but much longer and a little self-serving at times. I spent most on the time wondering if Brad P. was under all that cinemagic or a little person. It tried to be poignant too many times and the humor seemed awkward. always afraid the story might border on something a little sick. No plot. Just Character study...

Parental warning: Sex scenes, prostitution, one f bomb, and several other vulgarities.

Warped Religious view warning: There was a faith healing service which portrays Christians as, well, let's say, weird. (But hey, it's Hollywood.)

Emitophobia warning: one throw-up scenes.

Tokophobia warning: two birthing scenes.

Lilapsophobia warning: One Hurricane, seven lightening strikes and one pretty bad storm.

Audience clapped at the end. What was that all about? Some I guess thought it was a little more important that I percieved it to be.

[James Jackson]

Thanks for the review, Matt. And for the vocabulary lesson. Are those real phobias, or did you just make those up?
"Benjamin Button" is still on my list of wanna sees, but it's good to get some perspective, and the parental warnings are much appreciated.

[James Jackson]

So, I finally saw it for myself. And it took me awhile to put my finger on what bugged me about it, but I think I finally have. Benjamin is just so stinkin' PASSIVE in this film. He's like a Forrest Gump character, with one big difference: Forrest was also passive, but he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time to influence history. Not so with BB. Life also just happens to him, but instead of being in Vietnam, or the Lincoln Memorial, or the White House, Benjamin is in a nursing home in New Orleans or a tugboat in the North Atlantic, or some hotel in Russia. And here is a guy who is everyone's wish fulfillment-- the wisdom of age matched with the vigor of youth. I'm pretty sure Obama was elected because that is what people saw in him. So Benjamin could have made such a difference if he had shared what his years had taught him, and he had the energy to do it. You know the phrase, "youth is wasted on the young?" Well, in this case, reverse aging was wasted on the complacent.

It isn't that I didn't like the movie. I really did enjoy it. But it challenged me to do more with my life than just let it happen to me, while I still feel the energy to do so.

[Kristina Seleshanko]

I thought this film was over rated. The special effects were fascinating, but I had so many gripes about the script. Benjamin's adopted mother is shown as a Christian, but it doesn't seem she's married to her long-time man. Eventually, they have a child together, and she isn't condemned for this, even though the film is set in a time period when unwed mothers were taboo. And what WAS the point of the film? I think the movie tries very hard to be deep, but isn't deep at all.

[Tarah Peacock]

This movie was definitely overrated, as Kristina said. I thought they could have done a lot more with it than they did. And the end was almost comical! My husband and our friends had watched it together and we said there was no way they would actually make Benjamin turn back into a real baby at the end, but they did! I don't think the actual disease works that way, but then again I don't know much about it. It was like what was next, would he then grow back into a fetus?! Unfortunately that didn't happen, but it would've made for a more entertaining ending! And as we all know, Hollywood always makes Christians out to be "weird", which is very disturbing when you think about how "normal" they make homosexuals out to be in the movies.