Back during my junior year of high school, I was forced to read The Great Gatsby for my English class. Of course, I didn't want to and I barely even finished the book, but I liked the book and thought it was interesting. So when the movie came out, the book had a great enough effect on me to the point that I wanted to see the movie. At first, I thought I wouldn't like it because I generally don't like movies that are based on school related books. This movie, however, was not like those other movies, they found a way to twist everything around and make the movie enjoyable. That was what I thought about the movie as well, it sparkled with its spectacular cast and especially their props.

The first main aspect of this movie is the stellar acting by its stars. The movie stared Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. I will admit that until now, I have never seen a movie with DiCaprio, I have never seen Inception, or Titanic, or any of them. I just thought that I would not like them. However, after seeing this movie, I had learned why people love his movies so much, and that’s because he is such a great actor. My favorite character scene of the movie was when his character, Gatsby, was standing out in the rain. That entire series of scenes was beautiful, and DiCaprio had made it look perfect.

Next we have Maguire. The only movies of his that I saw were the spiderman movies, and I liked them, but I did not think that somebody who worked with such movies would be a great fit for a movie such as The Great Gatsby. It turns out that this was not the case at all, Maguire, in my opinion, did not put on that great of a performance compared to DiCaprio, but he still works well with his part and all of the other actors.

All of the other actors have put a great deal of effort into the movie as well. Carey Mulligan had done a great job as Daisy Buchanan, and had even won multiple awards for other films before being cast for this part. Joel Edgerton had done a great job as Tom and has also had success in other films that had lead him to this role. His most successful roles would probably be with Star Wars Episodes II and II, and Zero dark Thirty. I bring this up because I have seen these movies, had recognized him, and agree that those are performances are what brought him here. After them, every other person who had appeared in the movie had contributed to its success in one way or another through their performances. The truth is, if the movie had used any other actors instead of the ones that they had, the movie probably would not have been as appealing to me.

Most people have read the book, so know what it is about, but there are a few minor changes that are shown from in the movie. The biggest change is that in the movie, Nick is in what looks like some sort of a treatment center and the events of the movie are all him recalling them to the doctor. In the book, this never happened, Nick was a simple Salesman who moved next to Gatsby and that was about it as to how the story began. Aside from that, the changes are all small and either deal with the setting, the characters, or a few other minor inconsistencies. In a way, I like how the movie began showing that Nick was in a rehab-ish place. The scenes in which this was shown did turn out to be just a bit awkward, but overall, it gave a little more meaning to the overall story.

In this movie, special effects don't really mean special effects. There weren't any monsters or explosions that needed CGI, no, those were rarely used. Pretty much all of the films glamour came from the set and its props. All of the costumes of the film were so well made that they could have easily been passed off as a graphical illusion, and there were so many of them. Everywhere you look, your eyes were met with dozens of beautiful looking costumes. Next you have the actual set of the film, in which everything was beautifully crafted. You have the giant, wonderful looking mansion, the trees and the lake, even the "city" area resembled what it would look like back in the 1920's. Lastly, you have the parties, everything was bright, it was colorful, there were fireworks and everything that good lighting and effects can bring into a movie.

As for the music, it’s not something that I really like. When it comes to music, I like standard video game and movie music, I generally don’t listen to songs that have actual lyrics as part of the song. The soundtrack for this movie consists of songs performed by such artists as Jay Z, Beyonce, and Jack White. There is one that I do like, and that is the one by White. The song is called Love Is Blindness and I like it because I am a fan of The White Stripes songs, such as Seven nation Army. In my own opinion, this is the only plus of the music section of the movie, but I know that a lot of people won’t agree with this.

As for the movie overall, it was much better than I had thought it would be. I loved almost everything about the movie and I thought there were many parts of it that were much better than the book. I liked the book, but I like the movie a lot more and I am going to give it a grade of 9 out of 10. If you have not seen the movie, I would recommend it, but only if you are the kind of person who would not mind watching movies that are based off such books.