My problems with Benjamin Button

1. What does hurricane Katrina have to do with anything? Bringing Katrina in at the end only serves to break our suspension of disbelief and bring us back to the real world of current events.
2. Benjamin is not depicted with any immaturity when he is an old man.  He is shown once enjoying a story being read to him, but that is practically the only indication we have that he is not a completely normal 80-year-old.
3. Does Benjamin inherit the button company or not? Where does he get the means to sail around the world for several years? If he does inherit the company and then sell it, they sure skim over that part quickly.  Also, it is a major cop out.  The film makers would like to Have Benjamin Button raised by a poor black housekeeper, because that is more PC than being the child of a white tycoon (of course, they couldn’t actually make Benjamin Button a black man…), but they also want Benjamin to be rich so he can sail around the world without a care in the world and then ride around on a motorcycle looking exactly like Brad Pitt.  How do they resolve this tension between being poor and having the means to live the carefree life of a rich playboy?  Well, they have him win the lottery — i.e., he inherits a fortune.  The fortune has nothing to do with his life and nothing to do with the story — it is just tossed in there so there is an excuse to film Brad Pitt on a sail boat looking like he stepped out of a trendy clothing catalog.
   

   A gargoyle scowling at Benjamin Button and its problems.

4. The whole long convoluted scene in the middle of the movie in which any one of 10 different things could have happened differently.  This scene lasts at least five minutes and is narrated with an ever-building sense of drama.  If only the taxi driver hadn’t stopped for coffee! If only the man hadn’t been crossing the road just then!  If only the woman hadn’t delayed herself by answering the telephone!  And so on.  With this much build up, the payoff has to be absolutely huge.  Instead, we get the minor payoff that Daisy breaks her leg, which has no effect on the story at all.  Sure it ends her career as a professional ballet dancer, but she is over 30 at that point anyway and in any case her career has nothing to do with the whole business about Benjamin aging backwards and falling in love with her.
5. Benjamin gets dementia when he finally becomes a teenager at age 70.  Ummm…. what the hell?  Isn’t the whole point of this movie that his body is getting younger and more vigorous?  Does that not apply to his brain?  This ruins the whole point of the movie.  The possibilities of getting physically younger as you gain more experience seem like they would be endless — imagine the success you would have picking up girls!  Imagine the surprise on people’s faces when as a 16-year old in the 1990s you are able to speak with authority about seeing combat in world war two!  And so on.  Instead, we get one scene in which a young man stares around blankly with dementia.
6. The make-up artists were evidently unable to make Brad Pitt look like a 20-year-old, so they had him wear baggy jeans and sneakers in order to make him look young — this is a guy who has been wearing dapper outfits for the last 68 years.
7. You never have any idea how old Daisy and Benjamin are, but it is always on your mind and never seems to add up.
8. We are evidently supposed to view Benjamin’s decision to abandon his wife and daughter sympathetically.  But why?  He walks out on them like a deadbeat.