This movie shines from a technical standpoint, with competent acting and advanced makeup and special effects, yet as a story it leaves me cold.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, very loosely adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of a man who is born old and ages backwards, growing younger as time passes. Part of the problem with this is that we know from the start pretty much how this has to turn out, and indeed it is all very predictable. Worse, while there are many colorful characters, none of them really came alive for me. They are all stock characters that we have seen many times before.

The whole thing seems like a tall tale, and it might have worked well at that level, but a good tall tale is generally short and witty. Fitzgerald was wise to make it a short story. The movie, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, wants to be an epic, and it drags as we wait impatiently for the next predictable stage in the hero’s life.