I love a good movie. Be it at the theater or in my home, taking an hour or two to just relax and immerse myself in a fictional world with no real consequences is a stellar experience. Inevitably though, sometimes I waste an hour or two, bored out of my mind, as a film slowly chugs along. Even worse if it’s a ‘critically acclaimed film’ or on a ‘watch these before you die’ list. I feel like I’m inherently wrong. Who do I think I am, calling ‘one of the best films of all time’ slow and uninteresting? Well, enough is enough. I gave three movies I didn’t like the first time a second chance with a more careful eye.
Citizen Kane
Before: I watched Citizen Kane 5 or 6 years ago, at my dad’s request. It is his favorite movie of all time and the first DVD he bought as an adult. However, I found it was nearly two hours of filler content building up to one alright finishing moment. It was just a boring biography of a fictional man.
After: Well, I was wrong. Citizen Kane hardly has a dull moment. The film revolves around a team of news reporters seeking to decode Kane’s last word: Rosebud. Charles Foster Kane was a rich man who made his wealth off of his paper, The Inquirer. He lived a tumultuous life (loosely based on other newspaper tycoons) which unfolds with unique storytelling.
It’s A Wonderful Life
Before: I watched It’s a Wonderful Life very recently, only a year or two ago. What a slow, boring movie. Similar grievances as with Citizen Kane; I didn’t feel any motion in this one either. If Citizen Kane was the biography of an important tycoon, It’s a Wonderful Life is the biography of an unimportant man. Also, it’s cemented itself as a Christmas movie, with hardly any Christmas references.
After: It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t a bad movie, as I previously assessed, but it’s still not a very good movie. The film follows George Bailey, a man with big plans who has to watch as the world passes him by. He ends up on the verge of suicide, until an angel is sent down to help him. In a sense, it feels like Citizen Kane if it were a worse movie. Citizen Kane on a budget, if you will. The message that everyone makes an impact and the world would be a much worse place without you in it is great, but I don’t think the movie needed two hours to explain that. The plot of the angel coming down to help George is teased for so long, but only makes up a small portion of the last act. Maybe it’s just 1946 pacing for 1946 audiences, but It’s a Wonderful Life is pretty dull in 2024. Oh, and it still doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. One scene happens to take place during Christmas, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas.
Idiocracy
Before: Idiocracy is a failed commentary. I watched it about 3 years ago. The movie revolves around the premise of everyone in the future being stupid; a world where reverse evolution has taken effect. This means, in the context of the film, dozens of swear words, slurs, and sexual references. I was expecting an actual commentary on the future of our species, but it looks like the message succumbed to the very ideals it criticized.
After: I understand it now. Idiocracy isn’t a good commentary, because it wasn’t made to be a good commentary. It was made to be a comedy, set up as a narrative commentary. It follows the average Joe (quite literally, his name is Joe) being sent 500 years in the future in a failed military experiment, and, as previously mentioned, everybody is very stupid. It’s a good movie, but the humor is extremely crude, especially in the first half.
This went better than I expected. I expected to come back with negative opinions of at least two of these movies, but only one yielded somewhat disappointing results. I think that because I went in with a good mindset, that I was giving these films a deserved second chance, I liked them more.
