Critically acclaimed movies that you thought were undeserving.

*Fixed.

 

I didn't think AGAIG was a bad movie, but it's definitely overrated. I agree that Hunt's performance wasn't really Oscar-worthy, but I did think she was fairly convincing as an struggling single-mom. The thing that gets me about Nicholson's performance getting the Oscar is that, to me, it just confirms one of Hollywood's long-standing clichés: the well-known actor/actress playing a role where they're physically/emotionally handicapped yet manage to win your heart (see Rain Main, Forrest Gump, Girl Interrupted, My Left Foot, A Beatiful Life, ad nauseam). I found Nicholson's character to be unlikable and irredeemable (unredeemed? ), and his Oscar win was yet another "gimme" in a long line of gimmes.

 

Yeah, the "give the retard the oscar" syndrome got pretty bad.

Agreed. It wasn't so much scary as nauseating because of the shaky camera. The ending, wiht the guy in the corner, may have have been a good one, except that by that point I couldn't care less. The three film students were so absolutely stupid, we're talking IQ >0, that I was never really particularly scared of the witch or whatever. Most of the time I just figured they were too dumb to read a compass.

 

But... the whole point is that he WAS redeemable...

That's what the whole movie essentially set-up and the end kind of bore that out...

 

Cinderella Man>Raging Bull.







Heck, A Cinderella Story>Raging Bull

 

Every Wes Anderson movie I've seen.

 

Groundhog Day, it's a great comedy but recently critics have been making it something above what it really is.

I'll agree with Pulp Fiction but I'll raise it to say that Tarantino's entire career is vastly overrated, not to say he isn't good or even great but I hear things like he's the next best director of our time and I raise my brow.

 

I agree with everyone who said Blair Witch Project. I got bored with that movie less than halfway through it.
Also, American Beauty. Maybe I missed something, but I honestly do not understand what all the fuss was about with that movie.

 

It WAS one of the most underrated Bill Murray comedies (Quick Change being another, IIRC) but the critics are trying to elevate the entire film as a whole now, rather than simply his performance (along with Andie McDowell's).

 

Lost in Translation.


I've tried to watch it three times now and I fell asleep 2 times and the third time it bored me after an hour so I turned it off.

I don't get how people can like that movie.



It's a good alternative to taking a sleeping pill I guess.

 

Transformers(2007)

 

I was going to say that but it's not like it's going to win an Oscar.

 

You need a certain personality type for it (and a certain degree of intellect, I think, but I think there are plenty of smart people who are left puzzled and generally unimpressed by LiT). For myself, I find it to be an absolutely perfect film (as I posted recently, it pretty much is "my" film). I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea, though, and I think if it was, it really wouldn't be what it is.

 

Saving Private Ryan.

It was cool when I first saw it, but upon seeing it a few more times in the past several years, it hasn't aged well. Ultimately, it just has way too many cliches for me to take seriously. You had the inexperienced guy, the jerk, the angry Jew, the gruff yet lovable sergeant, and the level-headed leader who used to be a *gasp* teacher. In fact, Capt. Hanks' assigned profession is the single biggest offense in that movie. In Spielberg's world, no profession is farther than "trained killer" than teacher. It's simple emotional manipulation. So is the end where the German soldier they let live comes back long enough to shoot Capt. Hanks dead. And then you have the "lets defend the bridge - or blow it up if we have to" sequence at the end that, while cool, is done to death in war movies. Then Spielberg purposefully deflates the power of the ending by having a magical squadron of P-51s show up and bomb the German attack force into the stone age so that everyone who wasn't killed for emotional manipulation gets to survive long enough to question the futility of it all (I presume).

I feel the gore was gratuitous as well. Band of Brothers has almost as much gore, but it flows naturally from the story with no lingering shots of bloody stumps or spilled intestines that don't serve the story. Seriously, who didn't know war was hell until they saw SPR? Spielberg didn't really need to go out of his way to show us that. It really was the war movie equivalent to T & A.

 

But you have to look at the film in context, both historically and cinematically. Prior to SPR there were definitely graphic war films, but most of the time the violence was detached and chaotic (Platoon, for example). SPR made it personal and affecting, even if some of the individual shots are now dated and hard to appreciate.

SPR's sole purpose is to look at war the way troops look at it. That's the way I've always viewed it. It's my favorite movie, so maybe I'm biased...

 

Completely agreed about SPR. Highly overrated, and I'm thankful it didn't win Best Picture.

 

Because Shakespeare In Love has had so much more cultural resonance and cinematic influence.

 

The Thin Red Line was better than either one of them. They could have given the Oscar to that.

The Normandy landing sequence in SPR is a phenomenal achievement on just about every level, but the rest of the blandly conventional and hackneyed movie doesn't live up to the promise contained there. The movie as a whole is drastically overrated, but the Normandy sequence is not.

Anyway, some of you people upthread are crazy, and some of you are right on.

Movies that are definitely not overrated:

- Pulp Fiction (or Tarantino in general)
- Lost in Translation
- Wes Anderson in general
- Finding Nemo (admittedly, not as good as The Incredibles, but that's not a reasonable standard to hold most movies to)

Movies that are somewhat overrated, but not actually bad overall:

- SPR (see above)
- Brokeback Mountain

Movies that are definitely overrated, in that they are almost unbearably awful pieces of **** with little or no redeeming value:

- Crash (as -deeperfasterharder- notes, "not the one about the car-wreck fetish kommune")
- Babel
- Moulin Rouge
- the entire LotR trilogy
- Napoleon Dynamite
- Requiem for a Dream
- Forrest Gump
- Waking Life
- The Virgin Suicides

I haven't seen Groundhog Day since it was in theaters. It was underrated for a long time, but I think dp4m's right, and the public and critical opinion have come around on it in a big way. I haven't seen it recently enough to figure out whether or not it's now overrated.

 

- Finding Nemo (admittedly, not as good as The Incredibles, but that's not a reasonable standard to hold most movies to)


Heathen .

 

Tim Burton's Batman. I hate Nicholson's Joker. I don't like the script, and I felt the whole movie felt like some sort of compromise.

More shamefully, I just don't get the love for Chinatown. Leaves me cold.

 

I agree with almost dizfactor's entire post.

 

At this point we need to ask whether we're talking about overrated by the critics or the fans. Diz mentioned Napoloeon Dynamite as overrated, and unless he's talking about pop culture's rating of it, he needs to be laughed out of the forum.

 

I'd agree with whoever said American Beauty. Maybe I just don't get that movie, but I can't understand all the fuss it gets.

And Raging Bull is definitely not overrated.

 

Resevoir Dogs is definitely up there, but I'd still say it's second best. Maybe just because I like the chick power in Kill Bill

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

To those who dislike Finding Nemo, could you explain why? I don't say that in a hostile fashion, I just personally like it better than The Incredibles. I will grant that it probably has the most "kiddy" aesthetic of any Pixar film, and the premise has nowhere near the freshness of The Incredibles, but I enjoy it more. Some of the bits fall flat(the whole "I speak whale" sequence is a total yawner), but I think that overall the movie is filled to the brim with charm and wit.