The retro Aaron Sorkin era has come to an abrupt end

It’s been a godawful month for Aaron Sorkin.The guy’s facing more crises than the Bartlet administration.First came the 65-year-old writer-director’s sorry sequel to “The Social Network,” the thuddingly titled “The Social Reckoning.” About a whistleblower exposing wrongdoing by Facebook in 2021, it was a bona fide Coke 2.Nobody wanted it.
Nobody. “The Social Network,” the gripping 2010 underdog story starring a superb Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the best films of the past 25 years.Didactic and overwritten “Reckoning” is closer to an 8 a.m.
lecture at Sorkin University.And most of the class slept in. The movie holds a 55% on RottenTomatoes (even that’s too generous) and it has grossed only $16.9 million globally off a $30 million budget.
Sony ripped the film out of 2,000 theaters this weekend, its third in release, so that means bombs away.Taking over as Zuck, Jeremy Strong was rather less believably human than a Roomba.And Sorkin replaced David Fincher as director, a misguided and destructive swap.So, what of the Oscars in March? Might I suggest a trip to a faraway private island with no TVs instead?And while you’re there, also book a room for June’s Tony Awards.Because this week on Broadway, a rough revival of Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men” opened at Lincoln Center.
That military courtroom drama, which first played New York back in 1989, is what established the writer as an emerging force.“You can’t handle the truth!,” et cetera, et cetera. Sorkin took off from there.
Rob Reiner’s 1992 film adaptation starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and Jack Nicholson was a Best Picture Oscar nominee.“The American President” arrived in 1995 and his TV opus “The West Wing” came to NBC four years after that. But the reviews of the Lincoln Center show weren’t so hot on Thursday night.
A few miffed critics knocked the script — yours truly in The Post, Charles Isherwood in the Wall Street Journal and Alexis So...