Most of the most OVERRATED films ever.
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Alwehr — 11 years ago(September 30, 2014 11:27 AM)
As a sports movie it was fairly decent. But i didn't believe in the romance one bit. Felt like they had to squeze that part in due to a otherwise thin story.
Yea, i'm not a fan of this one.
"Hail to the king, baby" :OD -
njiuma — 11 years ago(October 20, 2014 04:24 AM)
One of my all-time favorite films:
- I think that movies, like songs, mark a special time period for some people. This one does for me, I saw this in 1996 during the opening weekend. For this personal, sentimental reason, I have fond memories of that time and always enjoy a re-watch of it. It's a feel-good film, like "Star Wars IV A New Hope".
- Even though it's not like a true rags to riches story (at the time it was panned by some as "from riches to riches"), it is inspiring to consider that JM is forced to actually live out his Mission Statement the hard way, by getting fired rather than having it implemented by his company. Seeing him fight through the process is inspiring as well as entertaining.
- Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a protagonist too, he arcs as well, and one roots for him as much or more than for JM. It is fun to see how their friendship makes each other change for the better.
- The central love story is cute, and the characters have to grow to understand how to love each other, learned in part from Tidwell's marriage.
- It is funny on a lot of levels.
Cruise acts like a jerk, and I found him a very unsympathetic character. He seemed so dismissive of Renee Zelwegger's character.
- But he arcs, realizes the greater value of his relationship with her i.e. "You complete me." Also, he had a strong connection with her son the entire time, a redeeming quality he had that the story built on.
Rene Zellwegger came across as a naive woman who loves a guy who treats her horribly. She seemed weak and pathetic, and I wanted her to lay down the law and tell him to shape up or ship out.
- She did tell him to "ship out." He left expecting the marriage to end. He came back saying, "I'm not going to let you get rid of me I love you. You complete me." She said, "You had me at hello."
The bit at the end with Ciba Gooding jr was a joke. He gets knocked out, looks like his career is over, and then he jumps up and dances around on the football field. Come on. How stupid.
- I liked it, couldn't have happened any other way to justify him getting the $11 million contract and the "kwan". Just a great play wouldn't have sold that moment better than it looking like all was lost first. How could they have improved on it? All had to be lost for the win at the end to pay off effectively.
- The quotes are popular because the film did so well and was a cultural phenomenon at the time. That's not the film's fault
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MuchToBeGratefulFor — 11 years ago(November 15, 2014 09:55 AM)
"The bit at the end with Ciba Gooding jr was a joke. He gets knocked out, looks like his career is over, and then he jumps up and dances around on the football field. Come on. How stupid."
- I liked it, couldn't have happened any other way to justify him getting the $11 million contract and the "kwan". Just a great play wouldn't have sold that moment better than it looking like all was lost first. How could they have improved on it?
I liked it too, but I see what the person you are replying to is saying. Tidwell has been knocked out and it's not clear whether he has a terrible injury or will even live, and then to come out of it and after just laying there for a few seconds, is able to get right up and prance around the field. As if he were waking up from a good night's sleep, not having taken a terrible hit. Realistically, after a hit like that, he should have needed to be helped to his feet, and walked unsteadily to the sidelines.
You must be the change you seek in the world. Gandhi
- I liked it, couldn't have happened any other way to justify him getting the $11 million contract and the "kwan". Just a great play wouldn't have sold that moment better than it looking like all was lost first. How could they have improved on it?
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GiorgioPayne — 10 years ago(March 23, 2016 11:32 AM)
Totally agree with you. Im a fan of Tom Cruise. But this movie is just him and a bunch of characters shouting dialogue with no subtlety. No one just shuts the beep up for one minute. There was honestly not one point in the story i cared about what was happening. And thats a serious problem for a film that has no visual style, dialogue which just doesnt have anything compelling and almost a two and a half hour running time. Oh yeh, and it was nominated for best picture.
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m-slovak79 — 9 years ago(April 19, 2016 02:25 AM)
it's not overrated at all
it's my #1 Tom Cruise movie and is my #1 movie of 1996 and is within my Top 42 movies of all-time.
Tom Cruise has been in plenty of quality movies to. in fact, i have seen nearly his entire filmography and i feel no one has a better overall filmography then he does especially given the volume of movies i scored a 7/10 or higher to which is currently @ 15 movies as no one else i am aware of has that many movies i scored a 7 or higher.
for measure there is only 231 movies i gave a 7 or higher to out of the 1,950+ total movies i have seen so as you can see scoring a 7 or higher from me is not easy (i still like movies i score a 6/10 but 7's and higher stand out for me).
so if anything i would say it's a bit underrated at it's 7.3/10 average rating as it should be at least high 7's for the average (especially given the crap that scores higher that's nothing special). i gave it a 9/10 (there is only 42 movies that scored a 9/10(25 movies) or 10/10(17 movies) from me).
i actually just finished re-watching it just a moment ago on April 19th 2016 (my previous re-watch of it was Mar 4th 2013) and it held steady even though it does take a little while to hit it's stride and then finishes well.
there is not really many movies like this out there, especially ones that stand out like this one does. it's definitely the movie ill remember Cuba Gooding Jr and Renee Zellweger for.
p.s. want to talk overrated, go see Fight Club (1999). that's pretty much the gold standard of overrated if you ask me. the young crowds seem to act like that's amazing when it's a pretty dull movie overall as while i used to like it when i was much younger (say my early-to-mid 20's or so(ill be 37 years old later this year)), it does not hold up (i re-watched it on Apr 10th 2013 (prior to this i don't think i seen it since roughly the mid-2000's)) and i find it to be below average/borderline failure nowadays.My Top 100-ish Movies of All-Time! =
http://goo.gl/EYFYdz -
daughterofolaf — 9 years ago(September 08, 2016 02:26 PM)
While this is not one of my favorite movies or anything, I have grown to appreciate it more over the last 20 years, perhaps due to my age/life experience/perspective change between the time I saw it as a teenager in the theater and today. That being said, it really sounds like you simply didn't get it or didn't pay attentionperhaps you didn't even actually watch the entire movie.
Some of the elements you take issue with (Jerry is an unsympathetic jerk, Dorothy is a pathetic doormat) are accurate for a portion of the film but not all of it. The points and character arcs you seem to have obviously missed are not even overly complex, deep, cryptic or hidden, so it's very weird that you would have such a hard time grasping and acknowledging what happened unless you did not actually watch all of it or unless you watched it while cleaning the house or dicking around on the Internet. Or unless you simply hated the film so much that you are deliberately pretending that these arcs never occurred. =/
No one will convince you to like or appreciate the film. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it, which is fine. Sometimes over-hype can kill the entire experience of a film for someone and maybe that is what happened here.
"Your petty vengeance fetish will have to do withOUT Mr. Groin!" -
chopper-9 — 9 years ago(January 27, 2017 04:16 AM)
I hated this movie so much. I wasn't looking for action as other people have indicated. I don't really like action movies much at all. I wanted exactly what this movie was attempting to deliver. A human interest story about real characters in realistic situations and real conflicts and dilemmas to overcome. I just felt that this movie fell short of its goals. I found all of the characters unappealing and the acting was terrible. It took Cameron Crowe three and a half years to write this! I thought it was one of his weaker scripts. My lack of interest in sport didn't help but Raging Bull is amazing and I hate boxing. I just don't see the appeal of this movie at all.