Seen the movie yesterday.
I feel like this is two films put together, one of them is pretty amazing, exciting and informative, and the other one is... a series of comedic scenes that don't work for me at all. And knowing that McKay started out in SNL, it was really difficult not to look at some of those scenes as SNL sketches - the restaurant scene is the best example of this. For some reason in the context of the whole film, these scenes - like the restaurant scene or the Shakespeare scene - really fell flat. They were too obvious to be thought-provoking in any way and dragged on for too long. I felt like these scenes didn't work at all.
But there are those parts of the film that were truly shocking and revealing, and that's why it's a mixed bag for me. I admired Bale's performance, and really each and every main and supporting actor is amazing in this, loved the make-up, etc. But I would've enjoyed this much more if it was less The Big Short and more like a traditional political drama.
So I enjoyed half of it, and the other half just didn't work. Bale is a god and I could watch him in anything, I think. But the film fell victim to "style over substance" in my opinion.
I feel like this is two films put together, one of them is pretty amazing, exciting and informative, and the other one is... a series of comedic scenes that don't work for me at all. And knowing that McKay started out in SNL, it was really difficult not to look at some of those scenes as SNL sketches - the restaurant scene is the best example of this. For some reason in the context of the whole film, these scenes - like the restaurant scene or the Shakespeare scene - really fell flat. They were too obvious to be thought-provoking in any way and dragged on for too long. I felt like these scenes didn't work at all.
But there are those parts of the film that were truly shocking and revealing, and that's why it's a mixed bag for me. I admired Bale's performance, and really each and every main and supporting actor is amazing in this, loved the make-up, etc. But I would've enjoyed this much more if it was less The Big Short and more like a traditional political drama.
So I enjoyed half of it, and the other half just didn't work. Bale is a god and I could watch him in anything, I think. But the film fell victim to "style over substance" in my opinion.
