After all the hype, prohibition era cocktails, flapper dresses, and jazz music, Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby (starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire) made it through its first weekend pulling in $51 million. Gatsby‘s weekend pull was second only to Iron Man 3 which made another $72 million. This was the second highest weekend opening in Leonardo DiCaprio’s career trailing the 1997 smash hit Titanic which is now the second highest grossing film of all time. Though if adjusted for inflation, Gatsby trails only the mind-bending thriller Inception.

Gatsby has been met with both praise and criticism as a polarizing audience either cites the film as spectacular and rightfully glitzy or untrue to the soul of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel. But no matter what, the box office numbers speak for themselves. Lurhmann also shot his rendition in 3D where BoxOffice.com interestingly notes 33% of the film’s gross stems from.

A good indicator of how the film fares is popular movie aggregator RottenTomatoes which gives the flick a measly  48% approval rating while the audience gives it a respectable 84%. IMDB‘s movie rating pegs the film at 7.5 stars out of ten.

Audience issues with the film include it being too over-the-top and focusing more on the aesthetics than character development. However, DiCaprio has garnered near-perfect praise for his role as the title character Jay Gatsby–one that was well assumed he would excel in given his penchant for playing characters who struggle with a sense of moral ambiguity a la Blood Diamond, The Departed, and of course Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet .

Who out there has seen the movie? Time to play critic and drop your thoughts about Gatsby on us. Was the movie true to the novel? Was it better? Worse? Did DiCaprio convince you that he was truly Gatsby? Let us know all of your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.