Thoughts on Joseph Gordon Levitt?

Really big fan. 50/50 and The Lookout are my favorite performances of his but he's gen really very good (Mysterious Skin, Brick, Hesher, etc...). Really hope he gets some great projects going again.

There was a period there circa Brick, Lookout, Mysterious Skin (even Stop Loss and Summer to lesser extents) where he was threatening to be just about the best/most promising and exciting young actor working.

Then came GI Joe, this totally thankless role in Inception, and that pretty much put an end to all that. That key role in Rises was nice, seeing him wasted in Lincoln not so much. That's pretty much it.

Attempts at respectability in stuff like The Walk and Snowden obviously didn't take, and were the total opposite of that stuff he'd been doing a decade earlier. Horrible career trajectory.

Still, his duet with Zooey of What Are You Doing New Year's Eve is awesome, and I don't care what anybody says, Don Jon is as good a directorial debut as I've seen in years. His performance in that I was horrified about going in, but I thought he brilliantly pulled it off with the right amount of knowingness, and the screenplay was the crown jewel. That dude was in tune with his medium like too few are. Needs to make another movie asap.

I actually can't stand Don Jon. Something about that film really bothered me - the way he presented himself and the older woman hippy saint thing - I know, I didn't get it and I ended up siding with everybody who I should have hated (Johansson etc) and I should have identified with his character but.............whatever...........hated it.

Otherwise he's capable, he was great in Mysterious Skin and quite good in Brick and The Lookout but there's something little kiddish about him, he doesn't jump to mind for any current or recent roles that you'd have liked him to take a crack at.

I think he is one of the biggest talents from his generation. What he does with such a standard role like 500 Days of Summer is really good, he elevates the nice guy trope to something so interesting that people are still arguing - almost ten years later - if Tom was a really a good guy or a douchebag. He also brings so much depth and likeability to his parts in 50/50, Mysterious Skin, Don Jon, Snowden... He's able to create characters without drawing attention to himself. Also he's got such warm screen presence and has chemistry with pretty much anyone.
That said, it's such a pity that he just sort of vanished. After Don Jon launching his directing career, I thought we'd see a lot more of him. He did well with such a poorly-written part in The Walk and was fantastic in Snowden, but those had zero traction. He should be working as much as Gyllenhaal and Gosling.

Appreciate the feedback . I sincerely thought Don Jon was one of the worst film of 2013 lol. And some of his HITrecord or whatever videos/projects are too cutesy for my taste. I do keep forgetting about Mysterious Skin (damn he was superb in that!) and my fav being Brick.

Fine actor, he's been good but seems like a kid always - he's never really stepped up beyond that for me. Mysterious Skin is a near great performance though.........Don Jon was a shockingly Wtf movie for me - he basically plays an annoying as fnck dickhead, that gets rightly told off by the girl (who he's lucky to get), then he gets the other older girl who loves him just the way he is which is still a dickhead.

It would be like if in Shampoo Warren Beatty ended up with everybody still wanting to fnck him........but that would have been ridiculous........well Don Jon was 40 years later and yeah..........ridiculous. JGL wrote, directed and stars in that ......it's mind-boggling really.

Weeeeeell... I dunno. I liked him in Mysterious Skin, Looper and Snowden. I found him annoying in TDKR and most of all in Don Jon (I actually hated the movie). He was ok in Inception.

My feelings are mixed for this guy. Looks very talented but his greatest films are not "his own". Inception is not really based on him or his character, it's not a film that people remembers because Levitt was in it. As for Snowden, he's very good but I had the feeling many other actors could have played the part as good as he did, or even better.

Actually that's the feeling I get for every JGL movie: He's ok but many others could have done better.

I remember when he was the darling of Oscar Buzz, but to me, he'll always be Tommy from Third Rock from the Sun.