After Earth and The Great Gatsby (careful contains spoilers)

I just saw "After Earth" and "The Great Gatsby". I must say that I was really looking forward to see these two films and although I enjoyed them, they were not at all what I expected.
I found both of them beautiful when it comes to effects, picture, angles and landscapes...but I was expecting much more from them than just being "eye-candies", a bit more of "content".
What has become of Hollywood? Do they always need to steal ideas from Asian movies and do re-makes in order to make good films? If you take away the CGI nowadays Hollywood films are just so poor. No really good stories it seems, no imagination at all. A whole lot of recycled ideas.
Let's start with After Earth.

It is not easy at all to make a movie interesting when you only have two main characters for nearly the whole length of a film. The acting was good, but the story could have been a bit more exciting.
Will Smith and his son did a great job, I think they are a great combo. I was very impressed by the acting skills of Jaden, he really is gifted and I am sure he will become a great actor.
Basically the story is about this Spaceship crashing on Planet Earth, which is now populated only by animals and some kind of giant insect after being abandoned by human beings. The only survivors are Will Smith and his son and since Will broke both his legs in the crash, his son goes on a mission on his own trying to find a beacon left in the tail of the ship like a 100 km away.
His father through some advanced gadget guides his son on this journey.
The idea behind the story is quite interesting, but it becomes tedious when there are not so many dangers and not so much happens. Oh wow the boy is getting chased by baboons, then picked up by a huge eagle, then bitten by a poisonous bug...come on, give us something more exciting that just that!!
 I actually risked to fall asleep more than once in the first half of the film. It took quite a while before things started to happen.



The Spaceship from the outside looked like a Swan or something

The interior of the Spaceship was lame beyond words. Honestly...not even Star Trek back in the 60's looked so poor! Are you telling me that with all this big advanced technology the comfort of the passengers was limited to a plastic chair and a safety belt? These people are travelling through space like that?? Not even beds, comfy seats, fancy screens? I wouldn't pay 10 dollars for a trip like that! LOL

 

I must say the trailer of After Earth was probably more exciting than the film itself. I was expecting something more "grand".

Now, THE GREAT GATSBY.

You guys have no idea how much I was looking forward to this film. Those of you who know me in person or have followed my blog for a while sure must know that I am a big Leonardo Di Caprio fan. Together with Al Pacino, he is my favourite actor, so I go see all his films. I was totally amazed by the trailer of The Great Gatsby and had heard that it was a very beautiful movie. My high expectations were unfortunately not met. I honestly hated the first half of the film.
It was just a big show off  of glamour and wonderful costumes, grand palaces, beautiful women...very colourful, very posh, beautiful images...in fact spectacular images...but the story?
For an hour and half I asked myself what the purpose of the movie was, as it didn't seem to have any solid story. Ok, a guy (Gatsby) from poor becomes very rich, builds this castle, gives incredibly fancy parties all to impress this washed out shallow girl called Daisy, who by the way is married to a man just for his money and has a daughter. How shallow is that??

Leonardo Di Caprio as The great Gatsby

Things in the film start to happen like after two hours, which kind of rescue the film at the very end.
It could have been such a masterpiece if only the plot had been thicker, more dramatic and with more pathos. I didn't feel ANYTHING for any of the characters. They were all tremendously superficial and materialistic (apart from the narrator, who seems to be the only decent character in the whole movie) and I couldn't really sympathize with any of them. I didn't feel sorry, nor angry, nor sad nor happy for any of them. I just watched the whole thing like a mere detached spectator with a hint of frustration inside me, because I was expecting this film to be somewhat moving, or heart breaking or emotional in a way...but I didn't feel anything!
What a let down. I would like to watch it again just to see if maybe after a second viewing I would manage to see it in a different light, but at the moment I must say that I was not impressed.
The cinematics, the costumes and the grandeur of the parties in the film were spectacular...but the story could have been so much better. Had they shown for instance the journey that Gatsby had to go through in order to become rich, it would have been much more interesting. But they didn't, the character even appeared very late in the movie, so one didn't even have time to develop any attachment to him in order to sympathize with him a little, despite Leonardo's charm and brilliant acting. At least the end of the film was tragic, that was a plus.
At this point I really want to read the novel, I am sure it is going to be much better than the film!
It is almost always the case, when it comes to books getting transformed into films.