Most Overrated Movie and Why

[Malfy]

E.T. - For all the praise it gets, I watched it and couldn't stand it. Eliiot's high-pitched whining, Dwew Bawwymore trying too hard to be cute, non-interesting characters, the drawn-out ending, and being bored throughout most of the whole shebang put me off.

Donnie Darko (I guess it counts, it was recommended to me a lot when it was new) - Just a non-engaging movie that tries it damndest to be interesting by being weird as hell, didn't work for me.

 

[Shakomaru]

The answer is 2012. But instead of ME explaining, I have a pinch-hitter for me. Take it away, Dara O'Briain!

The reason for me was that I watched The Andromeda Strain right before it. Which was a MUCH better The world is ending suspenseful disaster movie.

Well, that's on account of the writer for it having been Michael Critchton. I should ask, though, which version you were watching, because it was really the older version (and not that made-for-TV movie) that was more true to form.

No, I saw the newer one. But I thought it was amazing.

 

[AusGamer44]

The first time I saw Citizen Kane I didn't really like it that much, then I saw it again about a year or so later and loved it. The same thing happened with 2001, 12 Angry Men, Bridge on the River Kwai, Blade Runner and Annie Hall. Meh at first, but it grows on you later (though it'll probably be different for others).

To be honest, the only movie I would consider overrated is Avatar. I couldn't stand the story or the characters, even on repeated viewings. I never really liked it, but I think the hype has died down alot since it came out (funny thing is that's the exact same thing that happened with Titanic about a decade earlier).

Oh God,Titanic! Most overblown piece of schmaltzy,calculated tripe ever.Sure,the effects are good,and it looks terrific,but the lame romance & cheezy acting really presses my buttons.The REAL story of the Titanic was far more compelling,and the survivor's tales and stories about people who really existed & were actually there would have been far more interesting,but I guess Cameron has no respect for history.There was a GREAT opportunity to make the greatest film about this disaster ever,and he totally blew it.

 

[Daedalus007]

Inglourious Basterds is one of the only films I have ever fallen asleep to. It is boring beyond comprehension. The entire film is displayed in subtitles, unimportant scenes drag on forever, and what action there is seems to die off before ever really starting to mean something. I'd like anybody who has watched this film and Avatar to reasonably explain why the latter is more overrated.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the fact that The Social Network won the Academy Award for Best Original Score over Inception pisses me off to this day.

 

[MadCapMunchkin]

Scarface. I just could not enjoy it.

Also anything stamped with "Star Wars" that isn't the original movies from between 1978 and 1983...

Ah. In that case let me suggest a movie for you to watch.

Sir, you win the internet. I mean the whole internet. Forever. *salutes*

 

[CODE-D]

Juno. It just isn't funny, clever, original or endearing.

It really is a foul peice of shit.

For me it would be anything Christopher Nolan has directed. Dark Knight and Inception being the worst offenders. Memento following closely.

You said Dark knight...maybe inception but you said the dark knight is overrated so i cant trust you.


avatar
juno

 

[Pierce Graham]

Titanic. Seriously, I was so bloody bored at the end I was glad they all died.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

District 9 - I, for one, didn't like the main character at all (at least in the first half of the film), and therefore found it tremendously difficult to sympathize with him (which, I gather, was supposed to happen).

Speaking as someone who recently declared D9 my favorite film of the last decade, this is actually pretty spot on. The main character is a completely unlikable prick. That you felt the way you did just means that Sharlto Copley did his job well. As to why I like it so much, it's just very well acted and directed (two things that I put a tremendous amount of stock in). Especially when you consider that it was both the director and stars first film, it really is an impressive achievement. When you throw in lightning guns that make people explode like water balloons full of red paint...well, that's just a bonus!

OT: Many people have already said, but the only thing outstanding about Avatar is the visuals. Cliched characters, cliched story, cliched everything. I'm waiting for the sequel where the entirety of Earth's military carpet bombs the whole planet into oblivion, cos human military conflicts are totally always decided by the first skirmish, right? The Earth High Council or whatever definitely won't say "Hey, those creatures murdered hundreds of human soldiers. Let's break out the orbital lasers. That'll learn 'em!"

Also previously stated, Juno. I watched it start to finish, and while I wasn't exactly bored out of my mind, I wasn't impressed either. Sure, Ellen Page is charming as ever, but the movie as a whole was just a bit below average. I honestly couldn't tell you anything that happened after the first...4 or 5 minutes.

Gotta say, I'm pleasantly surprised not to see anyone listing Fight Club (my favorite movie). A lot of people consider it to be vastly overrated.

You said Dark knight...maybe inception but you said the dark knight is overrated so i cant trust you.

To be honest, TDK is pretty overrated. Don't get me wrong, it's a damn good movie, but it's by no means the 10th best movie ever made (where it currently sits on the IMDb top 250). But that's just my opinion, which has no more or less validity than yours.

 

[deserteagleeye]

Saw 3D because I felt that there wasn't enough closure for the final movie, they missed their chance to break the cycle of the main cop character getting killed, and I hate that stupid dream sequence that does not need to exist! It was really just to show off more stupid 3D.

 

[Shakomaru]

Scarface. I just could not enjoy it.

Also anything stamped with "Star Wars" that isn't the original movies from between 1978 and 1983...

Ah. In that case let me suggest a movie for you to watch.

Sir, you win the internet. I mean the whole internet. Forever. *salutes*

I don't know how to react. OH WAIT! YES I DO!

 

[Zantos]

2001: A Space Odyssey. I watched it and was bored out of my skull, but I was genuinely interested in why people thought it was good. A couple of reviews later, and I find out the answer was because it's really good art, and anyone who says otherwise just doesn't 'get' it.

*sigh*

I prefer to read the book. Even Arthur C. Clarke thought the film was too long.

OT: I'd have to say Watchmen. Not because it's a bad film, but it seemed to get praised as the greatest artistic creation ever by the people I know.

 

[suicide samurai]

This might get me in trouble... but Indiana Jones.

I like the character--love the character and his dialogue/actions--but everything short of "Last Crusade" has always been boring to me.

I think it's the blending of too much goofy humor with what could be serious levels of "kick ass." Temple of Doom" pretty much has always been the one that most annoyed me, but I couldn't even finish "Crystal Skull" after seeing "Mutt Jones" swinging through the jungle like Tarzan.

 

[FalloutJack]

The answer is 2012. But instead of ME explaining, I have a pinch-hitter for me. Take it away, Dara O'Briain!

The reason for me was that I watched The Andromeda Strain right before it. Which was a MUCH better The world is ending suspenseful disaster movie.

Well, that's on account of the writer for it having been Michael Critchton. I should ask, though, which version you were watching, because it was really the older version (and not that made-for-TV movie) that was more true to form.

No, I saw the newer one. But I thought it was amazing.

Oh, I see. Well, I will say that the newer one wasn't bad. It was modern, it had nice effects, and was alright for made-for-TV. But it wasn't like the book or even as the previous movie, per se. Some parts matched and some did not. And some parts were a bit wrong. Like...you really can't see the virus as an evil haze which you can run away from. And...neither the book nor the movie before it involved any timey-wimeyness, so why put it there?

The story goes that a satellite was hit by a foreign object and when it returned to Earth, it hit the wrong place and when the bugger was opened, it killed next to everybody with a virus. And what was this virus? Not a freaky thing from the future which ends up a commentary on endangering species on Earth, but an alien microbe. I don't know exactly what, if any, subtle messages Critchton was sending through when he wrote the book, but when you change the story like that, you distort whatever message HE had intended and that's not right.

So, it's an alright film, but you understand my reservations about it.

 

[SonicKoala]

District 9 - I, for one, didn't like the main character at all (at least in the first half of the film), and therefore found it tremendously difficult to sympathize with him (which, I gather, was supposed to happen). As for everything else, I was rather underwhelmed. It was a good movie, yes, but I didn't understand why people (particularly people on this website) were so adamant in their assertion that it was a "brilliant" movie, or, as I saw many times, "one of the best movies ever". Just....no. Stop.

What irks me even more is that I have a strong feeling many of those same people who claimed District 9 was such a masterful work are amongst those same people dismissing 2001 as being "boring".

What irks me more is that 'true appreciators of art' dismiss others for dismissing 2001: Space Odyssey as boring. That was its main issue, I don't understand how you can just ignore it like that. It's like saying that a game which had an amazing concept but absolutely horrible gameplay mechanics was, overall, amazing.

And I did like District 9. Mostly because the F-word sounds awesome in a South African accent

Incidentally, the South African accent was, for me, one of the highlights of that movie Honestly, I can understand why people would find 2001 boring - I just happen to not be one of them. Maybe it's because I've studied film for a couple of years, or maybe it's because I have a keen interest in photography, but for me, literally every second of 2001 has something that I'm interested in. However, as someone already mentioned, 2001 is catered towards a rather specific audience, and I realise it's not a movie that everyone can get into.

I guess this means I should remove the last sentence of my first post - no need to sound like a prick, I suppose

 

[Curlythelock]

Apocalypse Now, I loathe that film.

 

[Raistlinhawke]

Any of the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Whether you like it or not, these films spawned a fanbase that is absolutely obsessive over every minute detail. For being half-decent throwback to golden age Sci-Fi schlock, the culture surrounding the movies has grown beyond anything else in pop culture. You can dislike most films and no one bats an eye, but publicly dislike - or dare to speak out in criticism against them - and you lose all your credibility as a media consumer. People created a religion over these three movies (literally), get married as bit characters and hold annual viewing rituals more dedicated than a majority of religious rites. If people didn't hold the originals in such high regard, we wouldn't have had to put up with all the horrible sequels of the past decade.

 

[Nazulu]

I'll have to say Avatar, I really enjoyed the film but it's nowhere near the greatest film I've seen which was literally rubbed in my face after the first week it came out. I found the environment interesting and the action scenes were a lot of fun, but I didn't like any of the characters, they were all pretty much average Joes.

I assume you mean "What popular movie didn't you like?"

Whenever people use the words overrated and underrated they seem to assume that their opinion is somehow superior to everyone elses.

'What popular movie didn't you like?' is a very different question. Just because you don't agree with a lot of the answers (and some of those really are just movies they didn't like) that doesn't mean they're not being honest. If you have read any of the posts, a lot of the reply's say they liked the movies but didn't believe they deserved such praise.

Citizen Kane. Excellent movie, highly influential, but not the best movie ever made by far, as AFI claims.

Just want to say, usually when they say best of greatest they don't actually mean the most entertaining or powerful experiences. They usually rate it for the big impact it had on the movie industry, and Citizen Kane definitely had that.

 

[drummond13]

There are so many. A lot of them, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, The Godfather, are because of excessive hype. No movie is ever perfect, so when people have told you something is the greatest movie evar, you notice the flaws a lot more easily.

Wow. I genuinely feel sorry for you. No, we don't think Blade Runner and The Godfather are good movies because of hype. If you don't like them, fair enough, but it's not because they're bad movies.

I love all three of those films, they're among my favourite movies ever. My point was that I say them without having been told anything them, so I came to them fresh and appreciated them for the classics of cinema that I truly believe they are. I still think they can be overrated though, because when people throw out phrases like 'best film ever' it conjures up an image of some mythical film with no flaws. I had to watch 2001 and Blade Runner again for my sci-fi class this last year, and what was fascinating was that everyone in the class who hadn't already seen them said they were really disappointed because they had believed the film they were going to see was better than the film they did see.

Hype can ruin any truly great piece of art, because while everyone's telling you 'it's great' you'll be imagining all sorts of cool things, but then you see it and it can never live up to everything it could have been. That's what makes films overrated, not that they're necessarily bad, but that over the years people have rated them too highly.

Wow, I'm actually really relieved to read this clarification.

You make a good point, though I'd go a step further. I think the other thing hype does is make people who don't like something feel like they need to balance out all the positive attention the film or game receives and do it annoyingly loudly. there aren't too many threads about how much the film Batman and Robin sucks because this is a fairly established thing. But if someone hates The Godfather or American Beauty they'll go on and on about how bad the movies were.

 

[Xanadu84]

Idiocracy, mainly because I see so many people act like it's an intelligent eye opening film. It's not.

I still kinda like Idiocracy, but yeah, your right about it being over-rated. People seem to think that the underlying point of de-evolution is valid. It's really not. It just preys on the feeling that everyone has of wanting desperately to feel like a relatively smart person in an endless sea of absolute idiots. I'm fine with it as a harmless little shameless ego trip, but it seems to be taken to philosophical proportions. And the jokes were really kinda lame and obvious and heavy-handed. I'm not calling it bad, but it gets inflated to an extent it didn't earn.