Movies I Consider Overrated

Sort of on the wings of the Harry Potter post, I'd also like to submit several movies that most people enjoy, which I consider overrated. This could be for any number of reasons such as un-inventive writing, over-reliance on cinematography and/or CGI but the biggest reason is because the filmmakers intentionally preyed upon the American publics' proclivity towards vicarious living. Which brings me to my first and probably most difficult case:

The Boondock Saints
Let me start off by saying I like the Boondock Saints and found it to be an entertaining film from start to finish (especially the protracted erroneous debate about the "rule of thumb" in the beginning). However, I think that people, especially from my generation, treat this movie as the gospel if for no other reason than they like to live vicariously through the two brothers. The main reason this movie is so good is because it touches on some of America's favorite controversial subjects such as vigilante justice, shameless violence, the militancy of the Irish, and Willem Dafoe. Who wouldn't want to go around capping baddies while having Latin inscriptions tattooed on your knuckles? It makes for good film and lets people identify with a gratuitously violent cause that everyone secretly thinks is just. Having said that however, if you take a step back from it, the movie seems intensely narrow in scope and in my opinion ends on a short and absurdly over the top note (i.e. Willem Dafoe going all tranny and the brothers and their pappy shooting the mob boss after saying that hokey "prayer"). So again, I think the Boondock Saints is a good movie, it even straddles the line with being great; but a lot of people think it walks on water and I don't agree.

Fight Club
In a lot of ways, Fight Club relies even more on vicarious living than Boondock Saints because of its commentary on the rat race of corporate America. I'm not gainfully employed as a pencil pusher somewhere, but surely there's a ton of guys with pent-up rage about where they work who would love to curb-stomp their coworkers with no repercussions if they could. Another thing that makes me like this movie is that Brad Pitt turns in a good performance, and by that, I mean he's as believable as a multiple personality can be and he actually has some inflection in his voice while delivering lines. The flip side to this is that I feel the director could have delivered the same stuff without the cinematography being so gritty and over the top (most people would rather not be exposed to a subliminal image of a dude's wang, what sort of symbolism could there be in that?). Not only that, but was there no other way to progress to the great plot twist at the end without the ridiculous idea of turning Fight Club into a terrorist group? I recognize that this is one of the seminal movies at the turn of the 21st century, but I can't help but wonder if people wouldn't view it more critically if not for the sterling performances of Pitt and Norton.

300
As of now, 300 has probably become my favorite movie to claim as overrated, if only because a lot of other people agree with me. This represents the most far-fetched version of vicarious escapism, yet people love it for its hyper-adrenaline, testosterone-infused look and feel. 300 is one of two movies on this list which I genuinely dislike on the whole for a few reasons. First of all is my own personal bias: I like my war movies to be epic in scope, with sicknasty but REALISTIC fighting even down to the first-person shaky camera cinematography from Saving Private Ryan. Therefore, it's easy to gauge my distaste for this movie, because 300 didn't really hit on any of this criteria. Everything was shot so close up and in slow motion to the point where it looked like Leonidas versus twenty guys instead of the three hundred Spartans versus the hundreds of thousands of Persians. Moreover, I thought the dialog was stilted and at times idiotic (the narrator started to annoy me after a while), good for a few sound bytes, but not much else. I liked Sin City, and I feel like dark comics such as that are where Frank Miller should stay, not in what could have been the most badass movie since Gladiator.

Crash
And finally, the movie I really, REALLY don't like, to the point where I'd say it was the biggest steaming piece of shit to ever win Best Picture. Prior to actually watching Crash, I'll admit I was sucked into the rave reviews of my (white) peers, who told me to go out and watch the movie all in one sitting, ASAP. Well I did, and looking back on it, I probably should have taken a break between each contrived subplot to go get too drunk to taste this chicken, because it would've made for a more enjoyable experience. There's really no good place to start with Crash, because I hated all of it, but just for schnitzengiggles, let's begin with the fact that they had to compile an all-star cast just to get their sanctimonious point across. Nothing informs me more about race relations in America than a painful argument between Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock after Ludacris has just jacked their car. And might I add that if not for Ryan Phillippe, I never would have understood the endemic corruption and brutality of America's police departments. I personally resent the fact that they had to collect these A-listers to really drive home their all too obvious points on race in the United States (i.e. you better believe what this movie has to say, because Don Cheadle is an articulate black actor, so....yeah). It speaks volumes about American culture that a (substandard) movie had to come along in order to kick-start national dialogue about how Americans of different ethnicities interact with each other. I'm not too sure, but I think what the point of the movie was is that people of different races don't always get along, but in the end what unites us is our humanity and empathy. What? You mean I didn't have to spend two hours and millions of dollars just to say all that? Get out of town.