Critically acclaimed movies that you thought were undeserving.

What are some movies that you thought had unworthy praise heaped upon them by critics? I'm not talking about something like say, A Mighty Heart, that is critically acclaimed but just not the type of movie you'd ever watch anyway(apologies to the Mighty Heart fans out there ), I'm talking about movies that were lauded as being outstanding that you truly thought were bad or even terrible films.

I'm no professional film critic, but one movie that's critical response still baffles me is Peter Jackson's King Kong. It has a 84% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and most of the positive reviews are raving. Am I the only person who watched a three hour movie with a two hour love story between a woman and a giant gorilla? This movie had absolutely zero emotional resonance, and parts of it were outright ridiculous. King Kong frolicking around the ice in central park while longingly gazing(again) at Naomi Watts? Give me a break. Even the action sequences are so long that I was numb to what was going on in them before they were even over. I thought this movie completely missed the mark and I don't think I'll ever get why this was considered one of the best films of 2006.

Well, there's my rant. Your guys' turn.

 

Crash.

(not the one about the car-wreck fetish kommune)

 

Finding Nemo. A fairly conventional story told largely without the witty humour Pixar createst. Yet it's huge. ?????????

 

Its huge because Pixar=animation god.

 

The Queen, and Helen Mirren performance.

Both were good, but not worthy of the incessant amount of praise they received.

 

I second this one. I thought it was mediocre at best, and light years from its predecessor (Monsters Inc.) or its successor (The Incredibles).

 

Pulp Fiction

*Ducks*

 

"Forrest Gump"

 

Gotta go with Crash. I think Brokeback deserved the Oscar way ahead of everything else that year, save for maybe Munich.

 

I say Brokeback Mountain was undeserved of it's acclaim. At it's core it was about as good as a Lifetime made for TV movie.

 

That's how I feel about Crash. I think Brokeback Mountain is one of the classics of this time.

 

Return of the King. Hugely overrated, and scarcely deserving of its Best Picture prize (which should have gone to the vastly superior Lost in Translation). Can't stand this one, and it bothers me that it swept the Oscars as it did. It was nowhere near its fellow 11 time winners, Titanic and Ben-Hur.

 

Titanic.

It sinks, end of story.

 

I agree. Its just an okay movie. The entire Bruce Willis section drags, and borders on boring. The diner bookend scenes are very good, but most of the stuff in between does nothing for me.

 

Agreed. What a boring movie. Just like Ocean's 11-13. Waaaaaaaaaay to much talking.

 

The problem is that RotK got a lot of Oscars that should've gone to the two previous movies: FotR only got 4 and TTT, admittedly the weakest of the three, 2.

I must admit I never got the fuss of Titanic. It was an okay movie, once my bf finally persuaded me to watch it about a year ago: until then I'd refused to see it on the grounds that Celine Dion's theme tune was the worst song ever written. Nothing amazing, however. One of the most overrated movies in my opinion, ever.

 

Josh, do you think you'd like RotK better if I hadn't stolen the Oscar you think LiT should have gotten? Just curious. Because I hate Annie Hall and I haven't even seen it

I agree that Pulp Fiction is overrated. There are some very good things there, but there's also some useless stuff and an excessive amount of wanton violence. QT made some good breakthroughs for film style, but it's not the untouchable magical film so many make it out to be. It's not even QT's best- that would be Kill Bill (the whole thing).

An incredibly critically acclaimed film that I find incredibly overrated is Raging Bull. It felt clichéd and pretentious to me.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

I've yet to see Raging Bull (quiet, Rogue! ), but I found it remarkable nonetheless that it vaulted all the way up to #4 on the AFI top 100 list. The Best Picture winner of that year (1980), Ordinary People, is usually referred to as "the movie that robbed/beat/stole the Oscar from Raging Bull", instead of being described on its own merits. The cast was superb and the acting terrific, but nobody ever talks about that. Just that it beat out Raging Bull, which bugs the hell out of me.

As for ROTK, while I might be less inclined to dislike it if it hadn't beaten out LiT, I still think I'd dislike it a good deal. The dialogue throughout the trilogy felt clunky to me (an odd criticism, given the renown that Star Wars has for that area), and I didn't care for virtually any of the actors/actresses in the series (save Ian McKellen, the one saving grace of the trilogy, and who was in the few scenes I really liked, mostly in TTT). It just always felt "off" to me. I suppose we're all filled with contradictions, and my strong liking of Titanic is probably at odds with my dislike of ROTK, but that's me for you .

 

I completely, utterly and totally disagree. ROTK is a great movie and well deserving of its truckload of Oscars.

 

Pulp Fiction is about a tenth as good as Reservoir Dogs.

I also hate any number of Jack Nicholson movies. He gets rave reviews, yet he is essentially always playing the same character -- himself. Particular case in point: As Good as it Gets. Throw in the vastly overrated performance of Helen Hunt and for me, its as bad as it gets.

Can't agree on RotK, though, I love it.

 

I can't stand any of the LotR movies. The books are much better.

I also think that ET sucks.

 

Oh, no doubt the LOTR movies are miles better. But I think Jackson did as good a job as could be done bringing them to the screen. By no means perfect, but very good and at times excellent.

 

FotR was a 3 hour bore-fest, TTT I fell asleep through, and RotK was just meh

 

Babel.

 

The Blair Witch Project