Mini-Review: The Social Network

Go see "The Social Network." What? You want more? Fine. "The Social Network," if you were unaware, is a movie about the founding of Facebook. Cue the jokes about "YouTube: The Movie" and "Google II: Electric Boogaloo."

The "hero" of our story is Mark Zuckerberg, a curly-haired Harvard undergrad obsessed with success. I add quotation marks to "hero" because Zuckerberg--played by the curly-haired Jesse Eisenberg--is the most unpleasant character to slink into multiplexes since Lotso Huggin' Bear. Arrogant and socially clueless, he sees nothing wrong with writing a computer program to rank Harvard girls by hotness.

That unsavory little creation catches the eye of the Winklevoss twins, a pair of strapping Abercrombie-models-to-be with a couple million bucks to burn. The Winklevosses want to build the online equivalent of a gated community: a social network site open only to users with the golden harvard.edu address. Zuckerberg is so enchanted by this idea that he promptly steals it.

What follows would be deathly boring in any film not scripted by West Wing muse Aaron Sorkin. Zuckerberg, funded by a cash infusion from his friend Eduardo, sits down and writes several thousand lines of code. Voila! Facebook! Thankfully, Sorkin's overcaffeinated style saves the jargon-y dialogue from the mortal sin of dullness. You almost forget that no one in the entire history of mankind has ever spoken like a Sorkin character.

The actors do a fine job bringing the hyperactive screenplay to life. Eisenberg captures the flat affect and clipped speech characteristic of computer creeps everywhere. Any college student will immediately recognize Zuckerberg as the weird kid who sits in the front row and pesters the professor with irrelevant questions about number theory. Justin Timberlake brings a boatload of panache to the character of Sean Parker, a shady online mogul who sees himself as Zuckerberg's Svengali.

Does this movie have a downside? Of course! No review would be complete without a laundry list of weaknesses. And here they are: no likable characters, a forgettable score, and an unexplained shift in the main character's personality from passive lump to scheming mastermind.

Forget those quibbles, though. "The Social Network" demands to be seen. Like that guy on campus you try to avoid, it will keep popping up in your "friend" queue until you give in. Do yourself a favor and accept the request.