A Reel Opinion: The Top 5 Overrated Movies

This Blogger has always strived to keep things positive at Reel Speak. Sure, bad movies and cinematic assholes do get ripped here, and deservedly so, but despite the many problems mainstream Hollywood may have, I never wanted to jump on the everything-sucks train; that endless black hole of negativity where smart-ass movie bloggers just take a dump on everything, good or bad.

As the years pass, we all come across movies that we love, hate, loathe, and others that we just don’t quite get what all the fuss was about; movies that everyone hails to the high heavens and consider masterpieces or high art. Movies that get heaps of praise upon their release, and then worshipped as time passes. Recent events have prompted me to take a look at the films that I never quite understood where all the high accolades come from, and by keeping things positive, trying to figure that out can become an exercise in film criticism.

This very first edition of Reel Speak’s Top 5 Overrated Movies isn’t a list of films that are necessarily bad as they all have their merits, but they just didn’t speak to me and I’m left scratching my head over their popularity even after repeat viewings. The fact that these films appear on this list is credit to them right away

So here we go…

5. MOONLIGHT (2016) – It may be unfair to include this recent Oscar winner on this list as it’s only a year old and it hasn’t had the true test of time put to it yet, but I’m still fuming over it. Barry Jenkins’ drama about a young, underprivileged black boy coming to grips with his sexuality is absolutely an important topic to explore, but to me the film had no real plot, and with the exception of Naomi Harris, badly acted. There’s no real focus and it’s hard to find something to latch onto. This was the very rare occasion when the Academy really let me down. Again…yes it’s an important topic, but the name of the award is Best Picture, not Best Concept.

4. BLADE RUNNER (1982) – This is a film that I respect more than I could ever love. Ridley Scott’s futuristic sci-fi detective flick in which a cop hunts down a group of rogue androids is a visually stunning piece, supposedly conveying grand messages and ideas of what it is to be human. The ideas are definitely there, but they are not explored as deeply as everyone tells me they are. There have been seven different versions of the film since 1982 (annoying), and I’ve seen most of them several times…just waiting for that moment of illumination when I get it, but I’m still waiting. The film also has terrible, sluggish pacing with no sense of energy or momentum whatsoever. And I know it’s set in the future, but I simply can’t stand movies where characters dress weird for no reason.

3. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008) – This stupid movie, which was one of the other times the Academy let me down, is the only one on this list which I’ve only seen once, because that was enough. Danny Boyle’s drama, which plays out unintentionally as a comedy, asks us to buy into a lot. The plot centers around a young Eastern Indian kid who wins the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire simply by remembering events from his past. Well if it’s that easy, sign me up! I can remember my own past! It was an approach that felt like a shortcut, and the main character spending most of his life chasing one girl became annoying in a hurry. This film was also the beginning of a near-decade of actor Dev Patel staring at the camera with his mouth hanging open; a stretch that he finally broke out of with the far superior LION in 2016.

2. BATMAN (1989) – This is the one film that I loathe the most on this list. Tim Burton’s earnest attempt to bring Batman to the big screen for the first time has many merits; fantastic set design and visuals, a great score by Danny Elfman, and for the most part, a very good cast. It also stepped far and away from the colorfulness of the old TV series and put the darkness back into the Dark Knight; an approach still in effect in today’s Batman movies. The first 20 minutes or so of the film are absolute perfection, but for me it all goes to shit as soon as Jack Nicholson’s character becomes the Joker. From there it turns into a dance-a-thon with a goddamn song-and-dance routine every time Joker appears; so much that it might as well be called BATMAN: THE MUSICAL. On top of that, Joker’s nefarious plot to tamper with makeup and shampoo is one of the dumbest ideas of all time; so dumb that the movie itself couldn’t sustain it with any consistency. This was a sign of things to come; eight years of terrible Batman movies.

1. PULP FICTION (1994) – To be clear, I don’t hate PULP FICTION at all. It is well-crafted, well-cast, well-acted, and the “overdose scene” is one of my favorite sequences ever filmed and edited. My real issue with PULP FICTION is that it’s ground zero for my biggest hang-up with director Quentin Tarantino; that he constantly gets a pass for doing things that other filmmakers get lambasted for. This film is derivative of a dozen or so other movies that came before it, and is basically one long homage to one thing or another; it’s almost like going to see a cover band play, and for some reason QT gets praised to no end for doing it, while guys directing STAR WARS or TREK or James Bond films get roasted for doing the same exact approach. Besides that, PULP FICTION never had much of a plot to me; it’s a movie about nothing, and it always felt like three different films that have nothing to do with each other. And actor Tim Roth just gets under my skin in everything he appears in. PULP FICTION fans have called it transcendent. I don’t think so.

REEL SPEAK'S TOP 5 OVERRATED MOVIES

1. PULP FICTION

2. BATMAN

3. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

4. BLADE RUNNER

5. MOONLIGHT