Most Overrated Movie and Why

[Wintermute_]

Avatar. Ok, it's pretty. That, to me, is not sufficient validation for a film. And the allegory is far too heavy-handed to be taken seriously, so any merit it might get for its "message" is lost because it's delivered so obnoxiously.

thank you. Every time, every single time I say Avatar was crap EVERYONE and their mothers, cousins, and neighbors calls me a hater, says I'm being overly critical, and should just enjoy the ride. I'll concede, when first I saw it, I was geeking out. it thought it was great at first too, then I watched again, and then all the shit started seeping through the massive plot holes and shoddy narrative.

Bullshit. for the highest grossing film of all time, its a complete load of crap. For all the amazing visuals, the actual inhabitants of pandora and the little critters there are horribly unimaginative, and really, all it was was fucking space native americans! thats it! the Navi were so lame, in that when James Cameron could have made almost anything imaginable with his million in tech, he made tall, blue humans. didn't even bother to change facial features beyond bigger eyes and flat noses. and unobtainium? couldn't bother to come up with a decent name?
and story? to avoid an excessively large wall of text, I can only say it was so third rate and and the characters were just so annoying, save for Weaver and the other actress for aliens.

bottom line, I lament at all the wasted potential and the impending sequels, and how there crappieness will still make money, and perpetuate more mediocre films.
/rant

snip

wow... didn't see yours. Yeah, everything you said. thank you for a well explained if not slightly rage induced critic. Seriously people, go watch fucking Akira or a Miazaki movie, then talk to me about amazing visuals. weep for the lost days of the hand drawn animated movie (even though I love you Pixar)

 

[Nouw]

For those calling 2001 an over-rated film, read the book

 

[KanHanderan]

I know the Lord of The Rings films were "amazing" for 2003, but they were long, boring, and had virtually no replay value.

 

[JourneyMan88]

I'm going to get a lot of flame for this but the Dark Knight.

Not from me, I tend to agree. Thought Iron Man was the far better choice that summer. I'm also going to say Star Wars. Not a bad movie by any stretch, but if you take it at its most basic form, it's one of those movies that could have easily fallen into the "campy sci-fi" category if circumstances didn't quite fall they way they did. It also took away a lot of attention from some great sci-fi that came from the late 50's to the early 70's.

 

[HaussVonHorne]

Citizen Kane.

However, the modern retelling of essentially the same plot is my favorite film, 'There Will Be Blood.'

 

[IDTheftVictim]

Avatar was really dull, and people in my town will not shut up about how HILARIOUS Step Brothers was (it wasn't). But my most undying hate for a film "classic" belongs to Wizard of Oz, a film which was hyped to me throughout my life as a masterpiece and instead was a major dissappointment.

 

[Superior Mind]

Citizen Kane. Revolutionary for it's time, utterly meaningless and boring in current times. I still recommend that people see it, if only to be able to say that you have, but yeah, it's boring. Plus it has that gargantuan plot hole.

 

[Victory2Assault]

Over-rated movies?

Scarface. Anyone who watched this movie when the 20th anniversary came out sucked on it's dick like a lollipop. I like the movie, just because it's brutal but I watch it now and I can't wrap my head around why people love it. My friends claim this is THE gangster movie, with most of them never having seen Godfather or American Gangster.

The characters are quote machines to be honest, the plot you could see coming from pluto and the acting is stiff. Every rapper endorsed the movie, which made me really start to hate it. I know, lets glorify the drug cartel business. That'll sell some more records and DVDs.

The hype Scarface had was stupid. Guy comes from Cuba, starts selling and running coke, then gets his own empire and loses it. The plot was so simple, every idiot could relate to rise and fall stories. Al Pacino already had Godfather and it's sequel, for which he got an Oscar for, so why the hell did he make this rubbish?

 

[OpticalJunction]

All the Harry Potter films.

 

[bruunwald]

I hate to break it to you, but 2001, Citizen Kane and the Godfather are all great films, and if you don't like them or have to have them explained, then you probably aren't qualified to give an opinion in the first place, though you certainly have a right to your opinion in general.

It's a cliche to mention in some circles now, but The Matrix has to be amongst the very most overrated films of all time. It's not that borrowing or being derivative on their own are so terrible. It's that when you borrow from hundreds of easily recognizable sources, you ought to make something that elevates in some way other than mere spectacle. I'm not saying I don't like The Matrix or that it did not succeed as spectacle, but it falls far short of greatness and it falls far short in terms of meaning, compared to the potential it possessed.

For me, the final nail in the coffin was that after it foisted all this existential baggage onto Neo, made him into "The One," gave him these very lofty, spiritual paths to follow, and effectively lifted him up as humanity's savior, it then copped out with a free pass to kill any random passersby on the street he wanted, video game style, on the flimsy basis that because they don't know this is not reality, they will cling to it when challenged. So, the savior of mankind gets to kill victims indiscriminately because they are victims? Wow! What a message!

You know what movie The Matrix borrowed actual sets from, for its filming? Dark City: a much better film that came out the year before and also featured a lot of darkness, confused identities, guys in leather, and even a means of inserting "experience" directly into a person's consciousness (maybe The Matrix borrowed more than just the sets, yes?). In Dark City, the protagonist is also a potential savior to his people, who also can manipulate what passes for his reality. But unlike Neo, John Murdock actually has a range of emotions, cares about other people, and tries to figure out how to escape the darkness with the lowest possible body count, preferably all bad guys. And he never once utters a weed-induced "whoa."

 

[sam42ification]

Avatar... It looked great but apart from that it was uninteresting and way too long.

 

[SillyBear]

Saving Private Ryan - Beautiful cinematography, but really wasn't all that interesting to me. Maybe I'm just jaded because I'm sick and fucking tired of WW2, but it wasn't the "end all be all of war films" that people made it out to be. Also; what kind of fucking moron storms a beach with a short range weapon like a Thompson Sub-Machinegun?

Thousands of Americans carried Thompson Sub Machineguns during the D-Day landings, just so you know. Their objective wasn't to fight a long range battle, it was to storm the beach and take out the bunkers and trenches along the coast line. A sub machinegun was fantastic for this and every squad would have had a few men carrying one.

edit: "thousands" is probably an exaggeration.

 

[SillyBear]

I hate to break it to you, but 2001, Citizen Kane and the Godfather are all great films, and if you don't like them or have to have them explained, then you probably aren't qualified to give an opinion in the first place, though you certainly have a right to your opinion in general.

Absolute pretentiousness.

"I like these films and believe they carry fantastic messages. Anyone who does not like them either has poor taste or doesn't understand them".

What rot. Some people don't like them because they simply don't like them. It doesn't mean they don't understand film.

 

[sam42ification]

Twilight.

I don't think you can say twilight is overrated because no body liked it (with the exeption of people with vampire fetishes). I haven't actually met any one who likes twilight but i guess i live in a small town so the opinion of one person is the opinion of everyone.

 

[Victory2Assault]

I hate to break it to you, but 2001, Citizen Kane and the Godfather are all great films, and if you don't like them or have to have them explained, then you probably aren't qualified to give an opinion in the first place, though you certainly have a right to your opinion in general.

Absolute pretentiousness.

"I like these films and believe they carry fantastic messages. Anyone who does not like them either has poor taste or doesn't understand them".

What rot. Some people don't like them because they simply don't like them. It doesn't mean they don't understand film.

Some people do have poor taste in films. I have a friend who loves every single movie that comes out, and he criticizes me and a few others for not liking some of his favorites. Most of the time I get the "You don't like it because everyone else likes it" bull every time. It's only when I start to pick the movie apart and really get into why I hate certain movies that people understand what I think. I'm not a hard guy to please, I love my action-adventure movies, sci fi, and westerns but I like movies that have great plots.

For me The Godfather and Part 2 are among the best movies I've seen. The casting was perfect, acting is solid and script was written very well. I will admit them being long did detract me for a while from watching them, but if you sit with an open mind and don't write off a movie you may actually enjoy it.

I think what people need to do is sit down with your friends or peers, watch a movie and discuss it. I've done it on several occasions, more recently with the comic book movies. It's a real solid way to understand what people like/dislike about things. Regardless if you think a movie sucks or can't finish it cause it's boring, you could surprise yourself when you watch it with others.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Touche. I only knew that the characters were based on actual people, or at least I thought this was the case. Sorry you didn't enjoy the movie. I thought it was a good one myself. It feels like you have a very set idea on what a war movie should be and disliked the ways that this one strayed from that. I agree with your point about Joseph Fiennes' character, but this didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film. Even in a movie based on an actual conflict I don't need the film to be realistic to be enjoyable. Not if I like the other aspects of it.

*meh* Unfortunately, I make 'demands' (shall we say) of faithful visual aesthetic and historical relationships/events in the war films I watch... which is why I 'enjoy' relatively few of them (but occasionally I make concessions e.g. A Bridge Too Far, they hashed up Harzer & Harmel to make Gen Ludwig, and Kelly's Heroes, which is just a straight up comedy, and I treat it as such, rather than a war film). The thing is, though, I go into thems not wishing to be entertained, but convinced of how depressing it is. And to go for the Battle of Stalingrad example, why I consider 'Stalingrad' to be far superior, even though as a spectacle, it is not enjoyable in the slightest.

Ah well, courses for horses, I suppose.

 

[putowtin]

mine?

Dances with Wolves
Really didn't enjoy the movie, it wasn't that it was too long, but it did drag, boring and Kevin Costner couldn't act his way out of a damp paper bag.

Lord of the Rings, "It can't be cut down to two movies", oh it could have been, and some of the acting in there was utter shite

Titanic, just sink! stop turning it into a (done a million times) poor character falls in love with rich character movie, oh and stop turning the real life, saved passengers characters, in to stereotypical bad guys.

(Oh and I refuse to watch Avatar so I can't comment on it)

 

[jonyboy13]

No flame shield.

Watchmen. That was a horrible, horrible movie. There was nothing good about it except Mr. God, and he was quite boring most of the time.

 

[SillyBear]

I hate to break it to you, but 2001, Citizen Kane and the Godfather are all great films, and if you don't like them or have to have them explained, then you probably aren't qualified to give an opinion in the first place, though you certainly have a right to your opinion in general.

Absolute pretentiousness.

"I like these films and believe they carry fantastic messages. Anyone who does not like them either has poor taste or doesn't understand them".

What rot. Some people don't like them because they simply don't like them. It doesn't mean they don't understand film.

Some people do have poor taste in films.

What you mean by that is "some people don't like what I like in films".

People watch films for different things. Some people like to watch film to gain an understanding of culture and appreciate art and technical abiltiy. Some people like to watch films to relax, escape and be entertained.

The person who watches it on in the first way I described /=/ the smarter person. Nor does it equal the person with the best taste.

I have a friend who loves every single movie that comes out, and he criticizes me and a few others for not liking some of his favorites. Most of the time I get the "You don't like it because everyone else likes it" bull every time. It's only when I start to pick the movie apart and really get into why I hate certain movies that people understand what I think. I'm not a hard guy to please, I love my action-adventure movies, sci fi, and westerns but I like movies that have great plots.

Good for you!

For me The Godfather and Part 2 are among the best movies I've seen. The casting was perfect, acting is solid and script was written very well. I will admit them being long did detract me for a while from watching them, but if you sit with an open mind and don't write off a movie you may actually enjoy it.

I love both of those films too.

I think what people need to do is sit down with your friends or peers, watch a movie and discuss it. I've done it on several occasions, more recently with the comic book movies. It's a real solid way to understand what people like/dislike about things. Regardless if you think a movie sucks or can't finish it cause it's boring, you could surprise yourself when you watch it with others.

Totally agree.

 

[Semitendon]

Kill Bill is the most "overrated".

I couldn't stand watching that movie. Evidently it is supposed to be some sort of throwback to samarai films or something.

All I saw was corny names on corny characters with corny special effects in a corny plotline.

If the movie was made with the " it's badly done, and that's supposed to be ironic" mentality, I would have tolerated it. But, as I stated before, this is supposed to be paying homage to a series or genre that is no longer in the mainstream.