Most Overrated Movies

While the situation is not exactly the same, I have a similar feeling about Inception.
The concept is fabulous, but even though it explains ad nauseam how it works, it never explains why it works - and consequently only emphasises why it doesn't work.
The new "realistic" has been decided from the get-go and asks the viewer to accept it without any questions asked.
Inception plays it completely straight, there's nothing quirky about it that could make it easier to buy into its nonsense (like, for example, the way Black Mirror does).

I don't know what the average score is, but I have (anecdotally) over the decades repeatedly conversed with the people face-to-face who have discovered the film (watching the original release, later renting it from a video store, later finding it online) and commenting to me (personally) that the film is deep and makes you think. It seems to, in some otherwise intelligent people, prime conspiratorial thinking/Cartesian Skepticism regarding the social realm ("OMG, what if!?"). This is how I feel it is overrated. Decades of anecdotes in which I have spoken with dear and intelligent people who rate it higher than I think it deserves relative to this central conceit.

I recall seeing the film at its original release and feeling ambivalent about it and a fellow viewer put his finger on the problem (or at least my problem) with the Rube-Goldberg premise of the film. He commented as we left, "I'm supposed to believe all that, I can't even send two guys to the store to get a pack of cigarettes without someone screwing it up." The movie demands a lot of store credit from the viewer as a loan to invest in the infrastructure of building the bridge by which we suspend belief.

If a film is surrealist or whimsical I can roll with it (e.g., The Dark Backward, 1991). If the style of the film is "realistic" and not already in a genre which has struck a bargain with me (e.g., OK, in a vampire film, there will be vampires, I accept that), then I am not turning my brain off in terms of simple verisimilitude. And too much has to happen just perfectly for The Game to produce the manipulative causal sequence that we watch.

There is a similar twist in

View Spoilers

WARNING: "Is it really my fault if you haven't seen a 40-year-old movie?" spoilers below

April Fools Day,

April Fools Day,

, but as that film is a slasher with a comedic edge (pun intended?), I accept a similar scenario as a heightened/hyperbolic reality. Moreover, this film does not ask me or invite me (as The Game has prompted so many of its viewers to do) to consider that my own life might the result of a deep conspiracy. The Truman Show pulls it off, because it is a comedy, a comedy with a bit of tragedy and dystopic commentary, but a comedy nevertheless. That and it is set in a future application of technology, which primes me to accept the coupon I honor for "science fiction" (e.g., "OK, faster than light is impossible, but I am going to accept that your spaceship goes faster-than-light, let's just get on with the rest of it).

I think The Game is OK, but for me it asks too much and I cannot rate it so highly on the basis of the question it appears to invite, because it never really "paid" for the question with a fictional warrant (a realistic world in which I believe all the stars might align in this way). And if the reason you rated it highly was because of this warrant, then I believe you have overrated the film.

I think it has something in common with J.J. Abrams films generally running one step ahead of their plot holes. If you don't think about it and are just dazzled by all the lens flares, then it works. But if you bring the same logic you would bring to a typical episode of Star Trek, then it all falls apart.

Probably more than you asked for, but there it is.

General comment across the years of threads: Instead of just posting a title, please please explain why you feel that way. The spirit of these forums is discussion among fellow movie addicts.

In general I don't hold Citizen Kane in high regard. I do admire the craft and innovative camera work and montage that went into producing it. But I find it cold. I just can't empathize with the main characters or care much about the life of Charles Foster Kane. The framing is intensely self-conscious and I feel that keeps you constantly distracted from the human drama. Much to admire, not much to experience.

I get all that and agree that we're asked to buy things that aren't all that realistic, certainly in order to take it as seriously as the people you mention seem to do or for how seriously you feel you need to be able to take it in order to feel it's not overrated by those people. I don't at all see it as they do. Neither do I have to in order to take it seriously as entertainment. It is not a philosophic masterpiece in any way that's for sure. It may have helped that I had not heard about it and so had no expectations prior to watching it, IDK. Also I don't watch Star Trek

I believe I've rated it 80/100, though the same is true for say Happy Gilmore and What Women Want. So not fantastic but pretty good. I can't be sure as I don't know, but I would imagine that to be in the higher end of what most people think of it, which I would guess at best to average around 70 or likely below, as I can't say I've ever seen or heard anyone rave about it, hence I don't think of it as overrated.

While the situation is not exactly the same, I have a similar feeling about Inception.
The concept is fabulous, but even though it explains ad nauseam how it works, it never explains why it works - and consequently only emphasises why it doesn't work.
The new "realistic" has been decided from the get-go and asks the viewer to accept it without any questions asked.
Inception plays it completely straight, there's nothing quirky about it that could make it easier to buy into its nonsense (like, for example, the way Black Mirror does).

With Citizen Kane I've always felt the reason it's lauded is because of what Welles did when it came out and how innovative it was at the time. In 1941 it was all new. A lot of what he did was revolutionary and exciting. Now it's all been done so the novelty has worn off. I think the film is fine although I'll never laud it as the "greatest ever". I get why it is considered as such though.

It's over rated, but still decent.
There are films just as highly rated that are just plain ordinary or worse.

Again; I learned a long time ago I can't control other people, so I just worry about my own actions and let other people's take care of themselves. I don't have to agree with anyone on anything, whether it be vocabulary usage or perceived quality or any else.

Jeanne Dielman

It's over rated, but still decent.
There are films just as highly rated that are just plain ordinary or worse.

That's part of the problem with discussions like this. If you say "overrated," people tend to think that you mean "massively overrated" or "bad." The longer the argument goes on, the more justifications and defenses will have to be mustered. The arguments will go farther and deeper in terms of "building up" and "tearing down," creating the optical illusion of a false dilemma in which we must say it was the best or worst ever.

It is very hard for people to get what you mean when you vehemently argue that a film is mildly overrated. Any attempt at clarification will just inflame the illusion (e.g., "Why do you care so much?").

Again; I learned a long time ago I can't control other people, so I just worry about my own actions and let other people's take care of themselves. I don't have to agree with anyone on anything, whether it be vocabulary usage or perceived quality or any else./quote]

That's a good rule of life. Was well into adult life before it clicked. Caused some hardships. Not sure how well it addresses my post though but OK.

Sure. Relative to your criteria, I don't know that I would say that it is overrated. Or at least, I might just shrug and say that I'd put it closer to 70 or 75.

I have found it to be overrated by some people (people that I know and respect), and as I can persuade them "out there," I can only gripe "in here." If you think that The Game is an accomplishment of realism, then I think the evaluation predicated on that interpretation is faulty.

It's like being disappointed. It doesn't mean the movie is bad. It just means you didn't like it as much as you hoped you would. I don't know. Does this mean you can like a film you consider "overrated" more than a film you consider "underrated"?

That's a tricky one because it doesn't compare to anything.

I love the idea of Inception. The unfortunate thing is who wrote the script; Christopher Nolan. He cannot write a good screenplay. Uh, in my opinion. He's like toilet paper; he gets the job done, but he's still filled with shit.

Right, and then there's the paradox of having more criticisms for the films you love the most, because you have rewatched them and with greater care. You've taken the full measure of your favorites.

If something is widely held as great then it's wrong to admit that you think this is somehow not deserved because it would indicate that someone is wrong for liking something? Sounds pretty totalitarian.

I don't understand what's wrong with thinking people are wrong for liking or disliking something in the first place. If I loved a movie you despised with all your heart then how could you honestly in your own private mind not think I was wrong, misguided or have something backwards in some sense? While you don't have to shout about it, can choose not to dwell on how someone could think such crazy things, who's to say you're somehow wrong or bad for thinking my opinion is wrong or misguided, shake your head go about your day?