Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2013

I’m a fan of Baz Luhrmann. I’m just not sure one of the 20th century’s leading American novels is the right material for the clearly over-caffeinated director’s amped-up, high-glitz, musically anachronistic, 3D song-and-dance treatment. Ironically, the 3D seems to exist to make the speakeasy scenes pop, and the speakeasy scenes seem to have ben inserted to give the 3D something to do. Neither benefits the story at all. That said, the film lurches fairly faithfully through the classic story, and the acting’s tops. And through all these exhausting distractions, it’s still a credible love story.