Most Over-rated Movies

Despicable and opportunistic, with death camps presented like poorly managed boot-camps in which you could mange to survive by means of being slightly more intelligent than the average prisoner. The Jewishness of the main character is announced, but there is no heart here, no soul. Only sentiment.

It falls apart upon examination. If the hero had gone to jail, instead of to war, he would have survived, and perhaps even cleared his name. And the girl who grows up to be an author never atones-- she writes fiction, not fact, about her destructive childhood lies.

We are supposed to sympathize with Jack Lemmon's character, and Shirley Maclaine's, but he is an ambitious toady, and she's sleeping with a married man. Neither are admirable characters. Nor does it make sense that the boss, played by Fred Macmurray, would demand the toady's apartment for his trysts: that's what hotels and cash are for.

An insult to Japanese culture, depicting nothing but cliches, from endless karaoke to Bill Murray being the tallest man in an elevator.

It’s all style, zero substance. To borrow from Macbeth— a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. The screenplay has zero fresh ideas, or serious ones, or even comic ones. It’s a kaleidoscope, with no more change of pace or tone than that toy has.

Not a bad movie, but gravely misunderstood. It is almost universally loved and regarded as heartwarming. The real message, however, is relentlessly negative: without George Bailey, the people of the town sink into decadence and despair. Only a strong leader saves them, which is the essence of fascism.

the only thing the working wife (Sally Field) asks of her unemployed husband (Robin Williams) is to behave like a responsible parent. So why doesn’t he just do it? Instead, he accepts a divorce, and then he does it– but not as himself, not as the kids’ father so that he could spare them the suffering endured by children of divorced parents, not to mention actually enjoy spending time with his own children as himself. No, he’s got to turn it into a stage for himself, never mind the family trauma. A deeply dishonest movie.

Sadistic, simple-minded, and wrong-headed. Sandy (Laura Dern) the church-going virgin, is viewed as pure and good, and sex is presented as sick and evil. The images are potent, but there are no powerful ideas here. Only confusion and cliche.

The best way to deal with this endlessly over-rated film is with adjectives, starting with endless and over-rated. Then, of course, bloated. Slow. Fatuous. Loud. Unfaithful (to Upton Sinclair’s satire, Oil!). Sentimental. Confusing (Paul Dano’s twin characters). Abrupt (the ending). And, finally and crucially, pointless. I didn’t care about a single character, and the film introduced no new ideas or even flavors to the oil industry, family loyalties, ruthless ambition, misanthropy, religion, or bowling.

At this point, doesn't everybody know that Crash was over-rated? One of the weakest films ever to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

Ellen Page is talented, but her character, Juno, shows zero vulnerability. At no point did I believe in her, her family, or anyone else-- particularly not the health care workers.

A great satiric idea-- socialites amusing themselves on a scavenger hunt for "forgotten men" during the Depression-- doomed because of the silliness of the female character (played by Carole Lombard), which makes the romance ring utterly false.

Soap opera as propaganda, with good performances.

There's one good sequence-- a masterpiece of film-making, where Chaplin/Hitler dances with an inflated globe-- but the movie is otherwise tedious.

There is no insight here. Violence, fear, and psychosis are presented in purely sensational terms. A deplorable film, despite the talent that went into it (which do not include writing).

Grooming an adolescent girl to become a courtesan, with music. Vile.

And the other Biblical epics of that era, particularly the Greatest Story Ever Told and King of Kings. But Ben Hur is the worst. Slow, dull, and overwrought. For a brilliant (and hilarious) analysis of their failings, read Dwight MacDonald's series of reviews in his book, On the Movies.