# Movies that were overrated garbo **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2020, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319 "2020-08-05T11:19:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/81 "2020-08-06T18:26:38Z")
Too many short cuts. It would have been nice to see one musical number finish. Nice cast. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/82 "2020-08-06T18:38:39Z")
Pretty much any Marvel movie by definition. Back during the active MCU run almost every single MCU movie was being called “The best movie ever!” and then was quickly forgotten about only for the next one to be called “The best movie ever!”. I listen to a lot of movie review podcasts and that was literally the cycle, the hosts would all heap utter praise and admiration for whatever the current Marvel movie was, call it movie of the year, then at the end of the year when they did their “Movies of the year” discussion said Marvel movie wouldn’t even be in contention and when somebody would bring it up another host would go “Oh, that wasn’t that great.” Captain America: Civil War was literally getting people claiming it was the “Greatest Movie of All Time” discussion even on the Straight Dope. Now we’re a year away from Marvel movies pretty much and I’m already hearing the same people who originally praised these movies as “Greatest of all time” point out the myriad of story and character problems they had. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/83 "2020-08-06T18:43:25Z")
I am fan of the MCU movies but I admit they are just expensively made film serials ala 1930s Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon. Ditto for Star Wars/Star Trek. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/84 "2020-08-06T18:49:33Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > _Gravity (2013)_ > > 7 Academy Awards… anybody ever bother watching it twice? > > The CGI is excellent, the characters and story not so much. > > Both main characters are like cardboard cutouts. The female astronaut played by Sandra Bullock spends most of the movie either panicking or flapping around uselessly. > > Astronaut Chris Hadfield tears it to shreds: > > [NASA Astronaut Rips ‘Gravity’ to Shreds in Review – IndieWire](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/nasa-astronaut-gravity-review-1202220444/) > > > Much of “Gravity” is so far from reality that I want to turn my head. > > > I think it set back a little girl’s vision of what a woman astronaut can be an entire generation. I watched the entirety of Chris Hadfield’s criticism of a whole slew of space movies. Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and we’re all very proud of him here, but I think a few of his criticisms were just wrong. I do agree with him, though, that the portrayal of Sandra Bullock’s character in _Gravity_ as a helpless female, and some of the dialog between the astronauts and with mission control was stupid. I don’t remember all of his technical criticisms of all the movies but here’s a few I find questionable. He thinks it’s funny that a satellite was depicted at moving by at what seemed like maybe 100 mph, when LEO objects typically travel around 17,500 mph. What? All that matters here is _ **relative** _ velocity, and any orbiting object at any given altitude will be traveling at exactly the same velocity as any other if in a stable orbit. For _Interstellar_, in which Kip Thorne was technical advisor, Hadfield argues that you couldn’t fall into a black hole and survive because of immense tidal forces at the event horizon (he doesn’t use that term, but that’s what he’s referring to). No, the tidal forces (gravitational gradient) depends entirely on the size of the black hole; for a very large one, the gradient would be safely gradual. He also ridiculed the scene in _Gravity_ where the Sandra Bullock character detaches herself from the shuttle arm and goes flying off into space, arguing that she and the arm would both be subject to the same gravitational forces, so what’s flinging her away? Maybe the thing was rotating, and she was flung away by centrifugal force. To be clear, I think most of Hadfield’s criticisms were valid and well-informed, but he seemed just a little too anxious to tear films apart on a few rather frivolous grounds. He did admit that some of the scenes in _Gravity_ were visually fantastic, as indeed they were. I first saw it in a theatre in 3D UltraAVX, and the visuals were just awesome. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/85 "2020-08-06T18:51:30Z")
_Juno_ was way, way overrated IMO. The story and characters were interesting enough, but the whole thing just suffocates under the distraction of Ellen Page being just so doggoned quirky. She uses quirky slang! She has a burger phone that she calls a burger phone! It’s all, so, like, _random_. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/86 "2020-08-06T18:53:19Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > All that matters here is _ **relative** _ velocity, and any orbiting object at any given altitude will be traveling at exactly the same velocity as any other if in a stable orbit. It will be the same absolute velocity. But the _relative_ velocity will be very different if the objects are orbiting in opposite directions. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/87 "2020-08-06T19:04:52Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > … the _relative_ velocity will be very different if the objects are orbiting in opposite directions. Of course. The assumption is that this wasn’t the case, else you wouldn’t even see it coming before both objects were vaporized! But it would be perfectly normal to observe, from orbit, a lower-altitude object going past you in the same direction at an apparently low relative velocity. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/88 "2020-08-06T19:09:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > in 1982, three of the biggest pictures of the year were Tootsie, E.T. and Gandhi. The last won the Best Picture Oscar but I’ve never been tempted to rewatch it. But I have revisited E.T. and Tootsie multiple times. I’ve never seen ET or Tootsie but I have watched Gandhi several times. However it does make me think of another overrated movie from that era - _Chariots Of Fire_. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/89 "2020-08-06T19:22:10Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > rich self-centered white dudes have a middle-aged crisis Really? _ **Moonrise Kingdom?** _ - the main characters are two 12-year-old kids awkwardly in love. _ **The Grand Budapest Hotel?** _ - the main character is Zero Moustafa, a teen from somewhere in North Africa, and even Monsieur Gustave (from Zubrowka) is certainly not having a midlife crisis - far from it. And those are Wes Anderson’s two best movies! 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/90 "2020-08-06T19:24:08Z")
The writer and director tried hard to manufacture a Napoleon Dynamite cult classic. They failed. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/91 "2020-08-06T19:38:16Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > _Chariots Of Fire_ . I don’t think it’s overrated. It’s a brilliant movie that gives the genuine feel of a particular time and place in history. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/92 "2020-08-06T19:42:49Z")
In a thread that got deleted recently I made a reference to _Exodus_. More precisely, I didn’t, because my fat typing fingers omitted the all-important name of the film. My point was that the film had completely shifted from its original perspective of the “oh, the poor Jews wanting to become Israelis” by the time that I first saw it in the late nineties, and I could not help but compare it with the intifada that was going on at the time. Many films that seemed great don’t look so good when seen a second time, or much later. Many get dated surprisingly quickly. Some disappoint because they look like remakes that hash together bits of several films from the same genre. _Lord of the Rings_ comes into that category, and I wonder how that will age. Frankly, I just find the battle scenes unconvincing and overblown. Will that be the final verdict on the whole epos? Or to the “Hobbit” trilogy? LOTR had to pack a thick book into a long film. “The Hobbit” is a slim book that was stretched out into three films (which I have not seen), and the reviews have been critical. Oh, and a real disappointment: _Godfather 3_. It even references classic scenes from the _The Godfather_, as if it was running out of inspiration. A terrible ending to the trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/93 "2020-08-06T19:43:04Z")
Sadly, it is. Vote for Pedro is still around. I understand why the film has a certain popularity, but I couldn’t like the protagonist after he was mean to animals. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/94 "2020-08-06T20:35:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _Saving Private Ryan_ . > > The opening battle scene is great. But once that ends and the story starts, the movie goes downhill. It’s basically a remake of _A Walk in the Sun_ that’s trying too hard. Definitely, I’ve always thought this. The first 15 minutes are genuinely amazing, and the best representation of war ever put to film. Though I wouldn’t call the rest of the film garbage, its just a nothing particularly special. Just a decent war film, that doesn’t do anything a ton of other WW2 or Vietnam war films have done before. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/95 "2020-08-06T20:42:43Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Though I wouldn’t call the rest of the film garbage, its just a nothing particularly special. Just a decent war film, that doesn’t do anything a ton of other WW2 or Vietnam war films have done before. I’ve used the term mediocre. As you say, it’s not a bad war movie. I think it would be okay if it presented itself as that. But it’s trying to be a great epic and it fails at that. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/96 "2020-08-06T20:48:37Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Pretty much any Marvel movie by definition. This too. Though most of them are not garbage (some of them, e.g. the earlier Thor movies, are) . They are generally just decent mindless romps, enjoyable but with nothing particularly to recommend them. I realize that is easier said than done (witness the numerous super hero movies that spent a indecent amount of cash being un-enjoyable), but they are completely forgettable on the whole. The exception IMO is the last Thor movie which was actually a genuinely great movie, and a great comedy (but still a great action movie). I’d also add the first Nolan batman film, not garbage but seriously overrated, the later films were better though (I guess its the inverse of the Matrix trilogy where the later films were so bad they went back in time and made the first film worse 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/97 "2020-08-06T20:59:14Z")
My personal bug-bear is anything by David Lynch. His stuff is not just not that good. Its not that I don’t “get it”, its just incoherent garbage. Film shouldn’t be some secret club where you need special qualifications (i.e. be super super high 🙂 ) to “get” it. To be good (even remotely watchable) let alone great, a film needs characters and a story that happens to them I care about. Surreal films are all well and good (my favourite director is Terry Gilliam) but if they don’t have a story that actually makes sense they are just mental masturbation by the director. And that is all David Lynch’s films are. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/98 "2020-08-06T21:06:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > …Well, yes, Starship troopers is about xenophobia and fascism. But it’s also about American politics, both obviously and from what the director says. It’s about the rise of xenophobia and fascism in a population that doesn’t realize it’s happening. To exaggerate the xenophobia from actual American politics, it substitutes actual aliens for human foreigners. To exaggerate the fascism from actual American politics, it dresses the government leaders in Nazi clothes and makes their flags look like Nazi flags. > > Nobody disputes that it’s about xenophobia and fascism. The argument is whether it’s a satire. RealityChuck and I disagree on his criticism of virtually every other science fiction movie, so I’m not surprised we disagree here, too :). I think it’s fairly obvious that _Starship Troopers_ is intended as a satire. In my opinion, though, it’s just not a very good satire - it’s obvious and heavy-handed. Worse, there isn’t much there beyond the satire. There’s some decent action, but it’s a complete failure in terms of plot, drama and character. Compare it to an earlier, much better movie by the same director: _Robocop_. That movie has satire, too, except it’s a lot more focused and biting, and therefore more effective. More importantly, it has an actual story and characters that we can care about, with strong, capable actors in its leading roles (better action, too). _Robocop_ is a masterpiece; _Starship Troopers_ is a wan attempt at replicating its magic. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/99 "2020-08-06T21:11:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think it’s fairly obvious that _Starship Troopers_ is intended as a satire. In my opinion, though, it’s just not a very good satire - it’s obvious and heavy-handed. Worse, there isn’t much there beyond the satire. There’s some decent action, but it’s a complete failure in terms of plot, drama and character. Agreed but also is actually held up as an actually great movie, satire or not, by anyone? I’ve always seen it lumped in with 80s action/scifi movies that are enjoyable, but cheesy tat (a fair assessment IMO) ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319/100 "2020-08-06T21:28:22Z")
> [@](#): > > 80s action/scifi movies that are enjoyable, but cheesy tat ( I’d also add a lot of those cheesey 80s action movies, that are so beloved by action movie fans. There are some that are actually very enjoyable and fun to watch despite being cheesey. But plenty of them are just bad movies that are not particularly enjoyable. A good chunk of Arnie’s output falls into that category, e.g. Commando or Predator. Its not that they “don’t take themselves too seriously” (a common response by their proponents), there are plenty of movies that do that and are still good (Robocop mentioned above is a good example) they are just bad movies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-overrated-garbo/917319.md?page=6)