Aaron's Thoughts
If you love this movie, please avert your eyes from this.
I think this would have knocked my socks off if I watched it 10 years ago. Not only would I have been the perfect age, but I would have caught it at a time when I was a far less sophisticated movie watcher.
My big problem with Shutter Island is not that there is a twist. It’s that it puts all its effort and energy into the twist that it falls short everywhere else. I first had a hunch where the film was going around 12 minutes into the film. And I don’t even care that I was right. I don’t think being able to predict something like that makes a movie any less good. But what I do find annoying is how once you know where it’s going the film doesn’t do too much to make the payoff worth it. There isn’t near enough time spent on the original trauma, who Teddy is as a person, or how this has all impacted him. Instead, Scorsese decides to have little faith the audience will piece it together on their own & spends 2 hours handholding & dialogue dumping to make sure you don’t miss what’s happening. By the end of the film it seems like he wants there to be this big emotional release when the reveal happens and I didn’t feel a single thing. I was kept at such an arms length from Teddy (at times intentionally due to the twist) that the final 20 minutes made me feel nothing, which I am almost certain wasn’t the intention.
That aside, I kind it bizarre how no one seems to be talking about how bad this looks??? The CGI in the scenes set near the cliffs look like hot garbage. So much so that I couldn’t help but laugh when it came on screen. I thought I was watching a Russo Brother film for a second! And before anyone says, well the technology was different back then. This was 2010, not 1990!! I’m certain it could have looked 100 times better than it does.
Bottom tier Scorsese & one of my least favorite Leo performances (that I’ve seen up to this point).
