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Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Social Network


See the trailer here.

Mark Zuckerburg is the youngest billionaire in the world. He is the creator of a website that has connected 500 million people all over the world; even in places without roads have Facebook. He was voted Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2010 and this is supposedly his story.

Before you watch this movie you have to understand that it was not okay'ed by Mark or Facebook at all and was made using a loophole in the system so that they didn't have to get rights. This movie is an enormous stretching of the truth but is an amazing one with great dialogue.

Directed by one of my favorite directors, David Fincher (most known work his work on Fight Club), and screenplay by Arron Sorkin, this seems to be a winning combination by anyone's standards.

Let's start with the Pro's:

  • Amazing dialog that is acted almost flawlessly by Jesse Eisenberg; he really puts across the awkward social interactions that someone with a high IQ finds in normal society.
  • Andrew Garfield is great in the first role I've ever seen him in and really uses his facial expressions and body language well to get across how unsettled he is with Jesse's character throughout certain scenes.
  • Justin Timberlake plays Sean Parker, Napster's founder. I had very low expectations, but it seems that Justin is a much better actor then I gave him credit for, or maybe he just plays an asshole really well.
  • Armie Hammer, in my eyes, is the breakout star as he played both of the twins in the movie and was able to interact with himself in such a way that a few minutes in you really forget that they are both the same actor.
  • The visuals during the "hacking" and "programming" scenes really move well with fantastic editing that makes these things look fun and easy (they are anything but). Hell,when he finished the first scene I wanted to buy a netbook and start writing code.
  • The music swells and plays in just the right times to emphasize certain points in dialog.

Now for the Con's.

  • The story is VERY dramatized, with a bunch of lines and things that no one would EVER say and Mark has said never happened.
  • If you know the true story then you know that Mark doesn't care about money and he's had the same girlfriend though this entire process and this puts a huge dent in the movie.
  • Other than the girl that plays Erica Albright, most of the other ones have a hell of a lot of overacting problems.
  • With the lawsuit proceedings strung in the original story line it gets a little tedious at times trying to remember exactly where you are in the actual story.

Overall this movie was really well done and even though at first I put it off as an attempt to just make money off of Facebook's success, I was very pleasantly surprised. Jesse Eisenberg stepped out of his usual comfort zone and came out as an actor of his own right and not just another Michael Cera clone (same in every movie). This is definitely one you are going to see, if not own.

4 Stars out of 5



*All pictures are the the property of their respective owners.*

13 comments:

  1. This film seems very interesting! I thoroughly enjoyed fight club, so I'll give it a watch some time.
    I'm definitely following this!

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  2. Thank you very much! I should have a review for Kings Speech up soon.

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  3. Personally, I thought it was really boring. Every now and then there would be a funny little joke or something, but I was bored throughout the entire movie. I just felt like nothing was happening...the entire more.

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  4. 4/5 I think is a bit high, it's an entertaining movie and it's definitely better than the average mainstream movie, though. I'd like to see more reviews to see how your ratings really work

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  5. ^ Understandable, there are always differing opinions on any artform. I would appreciate you sticking around to check out more when I get around to them(Kings Speech will be up tomorrow) and see how you like them. If you disagree with me I appreciate any constructive criticism.

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  6. I thought it was an awesome movie.

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  7. a very easy to read and understand review format, concise yet informative. keep up the good work, I'll definately be coming back here regularly

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  8. I keep meaning to watch this, seeing this reminded me. Off to watch it now!

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  9. Oh gosh, it really was a big drama llama. But I still enjoyed it, though I wish they included the bits how Facebook likes to sell user data to the the highest bidder

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  10. Haha yeah, that might have been useful

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  11. A docu about a parking lot? haha

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