15 Most Underrated Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

12. The Great Gatsby

There's probably never going to be a movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby that fully captures what has made F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel so enduring. Its greatness is something so intrinsically linked to both its medium and the time period it was produced in, something no amount of Oscar-winning production design can replicate. That doesn't mean there won't be reinterpretations of the book that use it to explore something beyond what originally intended. Kinda like the version we got a couple of years ago.

Everyone measured Baz Luhrmann's opulent movie about opulence against Fitzgerald's novel and found it lacking. That's a fair enough conclusion, but the original notion is a bit off; The Great Gatsby isn't a movie that's trying to be the definitive take on the novel any more than Romeo + Juliet was hoping to overshadow every previous production of Shakespeare's tragedy. It's not like that isn't obvious; Jay-Z produced the soundtrack and there's more CGI here than in the Star Wars prequels.

Rather than style over substance, the style is the substance. It's a simple idea, but one that someone with such flair as Luhrmann can pull off in something actually entertaining.

Oh, and Leo's obviously great in it too.