Top 5 – Overrated Movies

This Friday, Blade Runner 2049 comes out, the sequel to the 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott.  A lot of people claim Blade Runner as one of the greatest and most influential movies of all-time.  I am not one of those people.  Now while I am excited for 2049, I would consider Blade Runner overrated.  This got me thinking of what other movies I would consider overrated.  So with that, here are my picks for the five most overrated movies ever made.

When I say overrated, I am talking about movies that critics and fans consider classics or have a profound admiration for that does not make sense to me.  I don’t necessarily dislike all of these movies, I just don’t believe they should receive that praise that they have gotten.

5 – BLADE RUNNER (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Let’s kick it off with the film that inspired this list, Blade Runner.  I’ve watched this film three times and it isn’t a bad movie by any stretch.  The visuals are absolutely amazing and it paved the way for the technoir subgenre.  It also features a great performance from Rutger Hauer, as he delivers one of cinema’s great monologs at the finale of the film.  However, greatest science fiction movie all-time?  Definitely not.  The movie is sluggish to watch, with an incredibly somber tone that just makes the filmgoing experience unpleasant.  Also, which version is the best?  There are five versions of the film, all of which have lovers and detractors.  The fact that nobody can decide on the right version annoys me and really hurts the film’s greatness as a whole.

4 – LOGAN (James Mangold, 2017)

Yes, Logan did only come out six months ago, but my Lord has this movie gotten a lot of undeserved love.  The finale of the Wolverine stand-alone trilogy does offer up some great performances from Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, and it’s the R-rated Wolverine movie that a lot of people were longing for, giving us some gritty, bloody fight scenes.  But I’ve seen people claiming that this is the greatest comic book movie ever made and that is deserves Oscar recognition for Best Picture (I could push for Hugh Jackman, maybe, but that’s really it).  Logan never felt complete to me.  They left out so many details about why certain things in the film happened or are happening and just threw some other things in the film that weren’t needed (X-24?).  This is a fine movie and I think people love it because the other Wolverine films were such disasters that a decent film looks brilliant in their eyes.

3 – THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (Mel Gibson, 2004)

Making over $600 million at the box office worldwide (almost $400 million domestically) and a following behind it, The Passion of the Christ quickly became one of the most successful and loved movies of the 2000’s, much to my surprise.  I didn’t see this movie in theaters, but as soon as it came out on DVD, I hightailed it to Blockbuster (that’s right, kids, Blockbuster) and rented it to see what the hype was about.  I attempted to watch this movie four times and each time I fell asleep.  I tried watching it at different times of day and night and could not do it.  I remember the first 20 minutes and the final crucifixion, which is stellar filmmaking.  But, and you will notice this with my top two overrated movies, this movie is an utter bore with only a great climax.

2 – THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrance Malick, 2011)

I don’t get Terrance Malick.  I have not seen a film of his that I genuinely liked.  I can tolerate The Thin Red Line (1998), but that’s about it.  The Tree of Life is considered by many to be one of Malick’s best films and a modern masterpiece.  My favorite film critic of all-time, Roger Ebert, considers Tree of Life one of the greatest movies ever made.  I beg to differ.  Like all of Malick’s movies, I think this movie are is about nothing, or what it is about is too ambiguous and not fleshed out enough.  Sure, this movie is visually stunning, but it also has no life despite it’s title.  It’s like starring at a screensaver for two hours.  The Tree of Life didn’t make a lot of money at the box office, but won a number of awards, including the Palme de Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.  I’m all about ambition and movies pushing me to think on a broader level, but Tree of Life does none of that for me.

1 – 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Considered by the American Film Institute as the greatest science fiction film of all-time (*coughStarWarscough*), 2001 is a beloved treasure in the world of cinema and one of the most boring movies I have ever seen.  Like The Tree of Life, the visuals are incredible, but that is all this movie has going for it in my mind.  I’m very hit and miss on Kubrick as it is, not being a fan of a lot of his films, and this is his biggest miss for me, right up there with Barry Lyndon (1975).  This is a movie about creation and humanity vs technology and it is tough to sit through this nearly two and a half hour long epic without dozing off.  Kubrick has made far better movies and there are far better science fiction films.  2001: A Space Odyssey is like being trapped at your grandparents house during a blizzard and the only channel they get on their T.V. is the NASA channel.  It’s a dull, cold, boring film with some great visuals and nowhere near a masterpiece like most people say, which is why I consider 2001 the most overrated movie ever made.

What do you feel are the most overrated movies ever made?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.