Film Review - The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network is the latest film from director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and concerns the origins of the hit social networking site Facebook as well as the ups and downs.

Now I know when I reviewed Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps that I said that that film was the last one of the year that I had any interest in, well I did have some interest in The Social Network even though it's released after that film, mainly due to the film's hype generated by the reviews from critics, most of which say that it was the film of the year.

But are they right: Well, Yes and No, for these reasons, for the first 2/3rds of the film's running time the movie is on top form, Sorkin's script churns out enough wit and social commentary to keep the viewer interested, this is backed up by Eisenberg's amazing performance as Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, his timing is spit perfect and he comes across as a cross between Data from Star Trek The Next Generation and Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, a socially disconnected person who analyses everything and everyone around him and can do dangerous things with it when motivated, something that his partners should have seen right from the start as the signs were clearly there to see.

But unfortunately, the film has a pretty big failing and that is the last act, strangely enough this coincides with when they meet the character played by Justin Timberlake, from here I felt it turned into a replay of the first Wall Street film Oliver Stone made, with Zuckerburg turned into the Bud Fox character Charlie Sheen played in that film and JT as Gekko, the slick business man who takes to naive dreamer under his wing and leads him right down the garden path while manipulating him at the same time, to bolster that viewpoint Andrew Garfield's character also takes on the Martin Sheen role from that film, as the straight laced man who tries to point out to his friend that he's being manipulated, even if Zuckerburg tells him otherwise, which leads to a somewhat lacklustre conclusion to the film which is a pity as when this film was good, it was very good.

Overall, this is a pretty good film for the most part but the third act scrambles it, so a 4 out of 5 for The Social Network.