Bezos: The Beginning

This is my first review ever on here. I just had to. I don't get why this was such a low budget movie. One of the biggest companies on the planet. And a movie about one of the richest men in the world. Yet the direction, the camera used, the cinematography, even the actors, everything is C class. At least casting could have made up for it but it was such a bad selection of cast. The only great acting was by Alex Mitchell. The rest of the actors seriously looked like they were selected out of school play and were reciting lines. I mean what in the world happened? This did no justice to Jeff Bezos's Legacy. I feel bad for all those that worked on it, sorry you were low balled for the production budget of this movie. Either that or the budget was very poorly used and some poor production decisions were made sorry to say. I hope there can be legitimate remake that actually does justice like the Steve Jobs movies.

... by people who've only watched the trailer.

I can understand where they're coming from and where they're going, and I'd like to respond to them preemptively - it's not as good as all the 10/10s, and it's not as bad as all the 1/10s.

It's ... surprisingly (surprisingly for a movie made by a company about said company's owner) well made. Not really a piece of propaganda (though "I made a movie about myself see how self-critical and honest I am" is also a common piece of propaganda).

I can see why it's not interesting enough to catch your eye, and definitely not something you'll not want to talk to your friends about (definitely not something you will tweet about saying how much you like it ) and it's an easy target for the look-at-how-cool-I-am-because-I-hate-it kind of people. I'd like to say, if you feel curious, it's worth your curiosity. I didn't say it's worth your time, I said it's worth your curiosity.

First off, this was not a good film. Nothing new here at all for anyone who's watched TV like Silicon Valley and other startup related content. The direction is clumsy and flawed and there isn't enough interesting going on to make it worth watching. Of course if you want to learn how Jeff Bezos thinks of himself and his life, by all means watch this movie because it beats spending days reading a book on the topic.

But there is nothing adversarial at all going on here either. In order to become a multi-billionaire and own a monopolistic corporation like Amazon, many people and small businesses have to be hurt along the way, not to mention the environment. What would have made this movie interesting would have been the portrayal of how Bezos personally dealt with issues like overworked employees, the unionization (or attempts) of various warehouse/distro facilities, the lobbying efforts and countless dollars spent buying US government representatives and senators, the foray by Amazon's hosting and data divisions into extra-constitutional government surveillance of Americans by way of taxpayer funded contracts with the Defense Department/Pentagon/NSA, the way Bezos decided how to game a lot of Amazon sellers out of revenue through various algorithmic quackery or straight up ripping off ideas (one wonders if Bezos had any role in the Amazon Basics brand that offers knockoffs of already fine products), etc.

Instead we get a hagiography with a little nod thrown in for his ex-wife. We don't get to learn why he decided to become "buff" or the efforts he is making in biological sciences/cybernetics/etc. To try to live forever, his competition with Elon Musk regarding the aforementioned government contracts, the race to mars, or any of it.

Two word summary of this movie: Pointless Hagiography.

This slow paced movie tells the story of how Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. While rhe story itself is increadibly flat, it did manage to keep me interested throughout the movie, knowing how big Bezos and Amazon will become.

The production value of the movie is very low, but that's not the biggest problem for a character driven drama. The real problem is horrible acting and directing. Some moments seem taken from a Hallmark movie from the 90s, and many other moments are robotic and staged.

Overall it's a pretty weak film, but can be useful to pass the time on a slow night in, when you might be too tired to watch anything actually engaging.

I struggle with how a man worth over $150 BILLION has a low budget movie made about him. It's disappointing and embarrassing. This movie should have had "A" list actors and actresses, popular music from that era, and more depth to the plot. Maybe I'm just not aware of the dynamics between billionaires and Hollywood...is there a "don't cross this line" between them or something? I would imagine that they rub elbows so I'm seriously confused why this movie wasn't made in blockbuster fashion. Instead it's cheesy with terrible acting and a terrible ending. I'm a huge Amazon fan so it feels personal that Jeff didn't invest more time, talent and money into telling me his origin story.