The Irishman - Are Special Effects Really Oscar Worthy?

You have Martin Scorsese, a legendary filmmaker. You have Joe Pesci's long-anticipated return to the big screen. At $159 million, this is Scorsese's most expensive film to date. The Irishman (2019) was supposed to be this great movie. As you can see by the title, I was not at all impressed with Scorsese's latest movie. I'll put it to you this way, I feel like I owe Tron Legacy's special effects artists an apology. Sure, "young" Jeff Bridges looked bad, but not nearly as bad as "young" De Niro and Pesci.

The Uncanny Valley

The first time I saw "young" Robert DeNiro in this movie, I immediately felt the chill from the uncanny valley. The Uncanny Valley is when something looks almost real, but there is something off about it that creeps us out (for example, lifelike animatronics). The still-frames from the movie may not look too bad, but trust me, "young" DeNiro is very creepy to watch in motion. Especially with those creepy, fake "blue" eyes. Yikes! It is almost as creepy as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's "Bruce Willis-fication" in Looper. People with naturally brown eyes almost always look downright creepy with fake blue eyes.

Compare and Contrast

If I didn't know what Robert De Niro looked like when he was younger, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. De Niro is supposed to be 35 in the opening scenes. Compare a picture of the real 35-year-old De Niro to The Irishman's version of 35-year-old De Niro.

They look nothing alike! Robert De Niro is 76 years old. And in this movie, he moves like a(n) (admittedly in-shape) 76-year-old man! Again, watch one of De Niro's movies that he made when he was in his thirties. Scorsese prided himself on not using any stand-ins for the actors during filming because of how good the special effects are. Well, we can tell, and it looks terrible!

The only actor that actually moves like he did when he was younger is Al Pacino. Al Pacino claims to have studied his older movies to try to move as he used to and it shows. Al Pacino is by far the best part of this movie. Joe Pesci is a very talented actor with many great roles over the years. However, he came across as very tired in this movie. He does not move nor look at all like he did in his 50s (the age he was supposedly de-aged to look like).

What Joe Pesci actually looked like in his 50s.

Joe Pesci de-aged to supposedly look like the same age as he did in the picture above!

Notice how the de-aged images look too smooth yet too sharp at the same time. The special effects department obviously just used their sharpening and smoothing tools in some sorta photoshop. The effects are so distracting that it is hard to move past the topic. Why did Scorsese not just hire younger actors and make them looked older for the flash-forward scenes? This is what Watchmen did, and that movie's special effects looked great.

Conclusion

So, besides the special effects, is the movie any good? It is okay, I guess. The real-life story cannot help but to be interesting. I thought Al Pacino was really good as Hoffa. He definitely makes the movie and you can tell that he tried really hard. It's a stand-out performance that is just as good as many of his others. The rest of the movie was just okay. It's far from Scorsese's best. My three favorite Scorsese movies are The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Gangs of New York.

Overall, I would rate this movie a C (thanks to Al Pacino). If not for Pacino, this movie would get a D+ from me. If you are a die-hard Scorsese fan, then check it out. If not, then I would recommend that you watch his other movies first as they are better in my opinion.