being john malkovich was certainly a good movie. a great one, even. it's extremely original, funny, and engrossing when looking at it as a whole. but instead of singing its praises, which i'm sure other people can do more effectively, i'm going to talk about why i was disappointed with this movie. disappointed is a harsh word, though. i don't want to give the impression that i didn't like it, i absolutely did. i'm giving it four stars for pete's sake! i had a lot of fun. it's just that i was surprised how mixed i ended up being on a couple of major elements of the film that i expected to love. it's easier to just say that the movie is far from perfect. one of my major gripes with this movie is how i don't think it used its concept to the max potential it had. being such a unique premise as this, a scenario like this where you can enter the head of a person brings up many questions. a couple of which, to the movie's credit, it did answer. questions like "what if john malkovich entered his own portal?" and "can someone eventually learn to control john malkovich?". there's so many more it didn't answer that were racing through my head as the film went on. instead, it decided to focus on this kind-of lame love triangle story that you could find in any other film. now you could argue, "but it's a love story told through the john malkovich portal, it differentiates itself through that". sure, i guess, but for my personal tastes it's just the wrong kind of thing to focus on instead of playing around with the kind of story you can uniquely tell with this concept. i know i'm probably coming off as an armchair screenwriter, but i just can't shake off this slight feeling of missed opportunity. it's also charlie kaufman's first script though, and i know he can and does do better later on in his career. it's not the biggest misstep in the world. my other gripe with this comes in the shape of being john malkovich's protagonist, craig juarez. i don't know if it's the character himself, or if it's the way john cusack played him, but he's not a very good protagonist. he's way too eccentric and off-putting. he's overly pathetic too, but that's excused cause it makes for some good comedy. instead of being this relatable and likable weirdo like joel barish from one of kaufamn's other films, eternal sunshine, he just comes off as creepy and freaky. i think this is a quality kaufman himself realized and learned from, since from adaptation all the way to anomalisa he's learned how to write likable weirdo protagonists. i know this review made it sound like i hate this movie and it all sucks, but that really can't be farther from the truth. i did really enjoy my time with it, and i agree with the general consensus on most things in this movie. those opening and closing thirty minutes were really great stuff, and the rest of the movie is thoroughly entertaining too. i was just surprised i didn't love it as much as i expected. note: change that poster back, letterboxd. the new one belongs in the trash.