for me, stylistically, Shutter was a 10. The composition of the shots, the lighting, the scenery, the sound, in terms of direction i thought it was one of scorsese's most fully realized movies. he shows complete control of the "mis en scene" in making his visual creativity and ideas work in service of the movie's creepy mysterious tone. storywise, the plot is engaging, offering plenty of thrills and intrigue while (usually) steadily escalating. ultimately it's conventional and certainly has recycled elements, though that's probably deliberate. the movie doesn't intend to be important or meaningful, it's a genre exercise and a very good one. it does seem to lose a bit of purpose in the middle, getting slightly lost amid its multiple threads, but even so at no point did i tune out. definitely a great time at the movies. dicaprio, ruffalo and kingsley are all top notch too. i wouldn't say i loved it either cause yeah, its fairly hollow thematically and emotionally (i cared about dicaprio but not to a great degree and you're not really asked to care about anyone else), but its a ton of fun. i'd give it an 8.3 on first viewing.

the RT score certainly isn't bad but i am a little surprised it isn't in the 80s-90s as the rotten/fresh is basically "would you recommend this or not?" i haven't read any reviews but i'd guess that like the above poster some viewers were turned off by some of the more familiar aspects of the story, but the film is so well-made and entertaining that i don't see that as a dividing line between good and bad, more between very good and great. i mean if crazy heart which is almost complete cliche storywise could get over a 90 this should too, island just doesn't have a career-defining performance. either way i'm sure it'll make a shit ton of money as the supernatural thriller/horror movie has been in style throughout the 00s and scorsese and dicaprio are as hot as they get in terms of popularity. plus i think for the common movie go-er this is a pretty riveting experience, word of mouth should be good. the theater i went to was packed and when the credits came up you could hear everyone talking about the ending.

And I can't say I've said or thought that about any other Scorsese film ever.

Did you care a lot afterwards about 'The Departed' or 'Gangs of NY'?

Actually, yes.

The Departed, save for Nicholson (who I wish wasn't cast in that role and/or was downsized greatly), is still an amazing film. In that I was leveled by DiCaprio's and Damon's performances. Especially DiCaprio's.

and Gangs Of New York is a sumptuous, if flawed film. The scope of that film is stellar and there's so much life coursing through its veins.

Absolutely shit film. I'm ashamed of all of you.

Totally derivative and contrived plot devices that were so transparent and telegraphed that the only real mystery was whether or not he would be so unimaginative as to actually lead the film in the direction you suspect and fear he might.

The cinematography was OK in places, but not nearly as groundbreaking as 10 as the Shackletons are making it out to be. He basically found a dramatic and beautiful coastal island and some moody period buildings and filmed them capably.

The trailer wasn't half over and I correctly guessed the main plot twist.

Considering it's based on a book I wouldn't say lack of imagination led him in that direction.

Fair enough. Lehane's lack of imagination deserves at least some of the blame for this horrible film.

Great filmmakers often do some of their best work—or their most interesting work, at any rate—when they seem at a glance to be slumming. Freed of any commitment to respectability, they can indulge, say, their penchant for visual expressionism, employing a palette so intense that it would be in grave danger of overwhelming a more grounded and plausible narrative. Certainly that’s the main attraction of Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese’s almost operatically moody adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s psychodramatic potboiler novel. The story turns out to be pulp silliness incarnate, culminating in a Big Reveal that alert viewers will already have guessed halfway through the picture. But it’s hard to complain much about the banal destination when the journey is so spectacularly evocative. Not since Kundun, his little-seen Dalai Lama biopic, has Scorsese conjured up such a nonstop succession of striking, unforgettable images.

As I said, that secret isn’t terribly difficult to guess, and one could argue that neither Scorsese nor screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis is trying especially hard to obscure it. Instead, they turn Teddy’s search for the truth into an extraordinary fever dream, in which disturbing remnants of his past—his shameful part in the liberation of Dachau; his wife’s death at the hands of an arsonist—burst onscreen at regular intervals in a riot of nightmare imagery. The dead wife appears to Teddy in a rain of ash, whispering warnings. SS kapos, riddled with American bullets, fall left to right in a grisly chorus line. Are these memories clues, or are they pharmacological side effects? And could any island or institution be this oppressively ominous, or are we seeing a landscape of the mind? Even the doctors’ cigarette smoke forms an impenetrable shroud.

In a way, Shutter Island became even more hypnotic after I figured out what must be going on, metamorphosing from an outlandish thriller into an indelible character study. (One performance in particular, which seems almost stridently bizarre at the outset, becomes remarkably canny once the pieces fall into place.) So it’s a shame about the expository third act, which places undue emphasis on the silly narrative by spelling everything out in detail so laborious that at one point it actually involves words written on a blackboard. I’d hoped for something a little more ambiguous. Still, if only more big-budget Hollywood movies boasted even a fraction of this one’s grandiose recklessness (reflected even in its score, derived mostly from avant-garde composers like Krzysztof Penderecki). The Departed may be the better movie overall, but Shutter Island, prioritizing mood and imagery over everything else, makes for superior cinema.

Biggest complaint would be the music, I could see that they were going for the sort of old time suspense score but it just ended up sounding too forced and over the top.

The soundtrack has one of the most extraordinary collections of contemporary Art music ever heard in a mainstream film.

Disc 1
"Fog Tropes" (Ingram Marshall) – Orchestra of St. Lukes, conducted by John Adams
"Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia - Allegro Moderato" (Krzysztof Penderecki) – National Polish Radio Symphony, conducted by Antoni Wit
"Music For Marcel Duchamp" (John Cage) – Philipp Vandré
"Hommage á John Cage" – Nam June Paik
"Lontano" (György Ligeti) – Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Claudio Abbado
"Rothko Chapel 2" (Morton Feldman) – UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus
"Cry" – Johnnie Ray
"On The Nature Of Daylight" – Max Richter
"Uaxuctum: The Legend Of The Mayan City Which They Themselves Destroyed For Religious Reasons – 3rd Movement" (Giacinto Scelsi) – Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
"Quartet for Strings and Piano in A minor" (Gustav Mahler) – Prazak Quartet

Disc 2
"Christian Zeal And Activity" (John Adams) – The San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Edo de Waart
"Suite For Symphonic Strings: Nocturne" (Lou Harrison) – The New Professionals Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller
"Lizard Point" – Brian Eno
"Four Hymns: II For Cello And Double Bass" (Alfred Schnittke) – Torleif Thedéen & Entcho Radoukanov
"Root Of An Unfocus" (John Cage) – Boris Berman
"Prelude - The Bay" – Ingram Marshall
"Wheel Of Fortune" – Kay Starr
"Tomorrow Night" – Lonnie Johnson
"This Bitter Earth"/"On The Nature Of Daylight" – Dinah Washington/Max Richter

Good music is all fine and good but it was still too over the top and forced in most cases. The music on the turntable when they first met the German DR was fine, but the music during the opening tracking shot as they are riding from the dock to the hospital was ridiculous. It was trying to build suspense but it was so loud and obvious that it was laughable.

Yes, that music. It actually sounds fine on its own, but in the theater where I saw the movie, the music was so unbelievably loud, it was oppressive, dominated the images, and called attention to itself in such a way that it didn't, in my view, work at all.

My thoughts exactly. Just too damn loud.

Saw it yesterday. Loved the look, the style, the whole work of the film, but, as I stated in Now Playing, I felt empty watching it. I was never much engaged by what was going on and wasn't emotionally connected to the ending arc. I'd like to say I'd see it again in the theater, but I don't see that happening.

Not a bad film by any means, but not a film I loved, either.

Preface: I haven't seen it yet

But if over-the-top music was such a dealbreaker, how do you guys feel about Hitchcock scores?

Regardless of whether or not you guess the ending it's still an engrossing and cinematically dazzling ride.