The Most Overrated Films of all Time

Every year people throw quotes around like “the best film of all time”. Are they really? So many films get an overwhelming amount of credit for being great when they are in actuality, average. These are the films overrated films. I shall name a few of these such films, please don’t hunt me down.

Titanic

James Cameron’s deviation from the sci-fi genre is a film that many take great pleasure in. Its greatest strength is in something that James Cameron is great with, the aesthetic. The film is visually stunning; at no point does the audience not believe that they are on the Titanic. Unfortunately this strength does not outweigh the crushing disappointment that is the other aspects of the film. The focal point of the film is the love story between Jack and Rose, a story we have seen many times before; boy meets girl, they fall in love, they can’t be together but they try to be. So very unoriginal. This was the point in Leonardo DiCaprio’s career where he was often in films to make young girls swoon. His performance was acceptable but not tremendous. Kate Winslet is an amazing actress but Titanic is most certainly not her best performance. A combination of satisfactory acting, an okay storyline and an unoriginal love story line make Titanic a greatly overrated film.

High School Musical

What happened to this world? Disney’s live action musical took the world by storm prompting sequels and tours. My main question is, why? High School Musical is clearly a musical for children yet many attempt to dress it up as something more profound. The storyline is almost non-existent. From the beginning of the film to the end there is hardly any character progression and at no point is the emotional tone at a low. Like any musical, High School Musical is reliant on the songs; this is one of the biggest flaws. The songs are mediocre. The dance sequences are impressive and this is one of High School Musical’s saving graces, the choreography is amazing but does it cancel out the lack of storyline and tremendous amount of cheese, I think not.

Crash

Number 156 in imdb’s top 250, winner of the academy award for best picture, Crash. A film that at the time of it’s release and still is, depicted as an enigmatic story about an untouched subject. The story is not enigmatic at all, to be fair, it’s quite simple and to say it is complicated or enigmatic is to insult the audience. The untouched subject? Racism. Shocking isn’t it. A film about racism; never heard that one before. American History X, Do the Right Thing-aren’t they films about racism? So why did everyone make such a fuss about Crash, a film that pales in comparison to the named examples. Crash’s clear lack of originality and shocking amount of credence makes Crash one of the most overrated films of all time and the most overrated film of 2004.