Does live up to its name? Not everyone who saw it is sure.
Reviews are pouring in, comparing director Baz Luhrmann's ("Romeo + Juliet," "Moulin Rouge") film to the iconic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel that inspired it. Some love its depiction of 1920s excess, and some don't. Is the adaptation too faithful or not faithful enough?
Check out a cross-section of reviews for a few insights into the film:
How 'Great' Is 'Gatsby'?
"Clearly, a Baz Luhrmann film coming at you in 3-D is not posturing as a deep-dish literary adaptation. One expects only the surfaces of the novel, and indeed that's what you get in this 'Gatsby.' But on its own terms, that might have worked. Gatsby's lifestyle has a gleaming surface, after all. So where lies the failure of this not-so-great Gatsby? I think this may be a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to do." — Kirk Honeycutt, Honeycutt's Hollywood
The Performances
"[Tobey] Maguire's otherworldly coolness suits the observer drawn into a story he might prefer only to watch. [Leonardo] DiCaprio is persuasive as the little boy lost impersonating a tough guy, and [Carey] Mulligan finds ways to express Daisy's magnetism and weakness." — Richard Corliss, Time
The Direction
"The director has steadfastly proclaimed his passion for the novel, but the film he's made of it too often plays as no more than an excuse to display his frantic, frenetic personal style. A filmmaker who has increasingly made a fetish of excess and a religion of artificiality, Luhrmann and his team ('Moulin Rouge,' 'Romeo + Juliet') pile ...