If you’ve considered seeing The Great Gatsby, remember what Baz Luhrmann is all about. Do you really like that style? Yeah? You sure? Okay, then go for it.

If, on the other hand, you remember what Baz Luhrmann is all about and you remember that it means anachronistic music and high-speed scene cutting, and you’re more of a synchronistic music and allowing-the-scene-to-mature-like-a-fine-wine cutting kind of person, then you should skip Gatsby. Because aside from a few golden moments in which Leonardo DiCaprio breaks through the emotional façade that F. Scott Fitzgerald so beautifully captured in the language of the original knowledge—and which is religiously and accurately translated into the screenplay—there’s no meat to go on.

Like the shiny promotional design, like the main characters, like Carey Mulligan’s performance, The Great Gatsby is all flash and no flesh. There’s nothing to grab hold of, and the movie runs long.

Maybe credit is due: I remember being utterly bored reading The Great Gatsby in high school, and I had an eerily similar feeling in this movie, despite the modern music, intense visual effects, and outstanding wardrobe and makeup work.