In anticipation of my list for the best and worst movies of 2005, I give you the list of the most overrated movies of the year. With so many critics and fans raving non-stop over the following movies, I thought I had to chime in and be the voice of reason. The greatest news that these crop of films could have received from me is this: they are good rentals and should be watched when they come out on DVD (if not out already). And although I can recommend them, my feeling is they have been given too much praise by eager and overanxious critics needing to be in step with popular culture.

10) Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Starts off as a good action comedy in the tradition of True Lies and works for only as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie go for broke and laughs. The second half is a little more conventional and ultimately not that exciting. To be quite honest, the critics drooled over this because of the real-life pairing of the two leads; they both look terrific in the movie and make some good eye candy, but in the end, it is a little shallow and meaningless; a typical popcorn movie.

09) March of the Penguins

Penguins are cute, there’s no doubt about that. They’re small, furry, sociable, and they act and walk like short tuxedo wearing humans. The love of penguins and our ability to anthropomorphize them is the reason this movie is being hailed as a great documentary. For those who don’t know, the documentary details the emperor penguins’ extraordinary journey through the ice and snow to find their nesting grounds, and though this journey is a remarkable process of survival and heartbreak, the production is still just your garden variety nature documentary. National Geographic documentaries have been doing this for decades without pandering to the audience. And, they don’t need Morgan Freeman to do the voiceover.

08) Cinderella Man

Riches to rags and back to riches tale about a Depression era boxer who overcomes hardships and poverty to make a comeback in the boxing ring, and as a result helping his family and the “common man” overcome their plight. As I said before, Seabiscuit is basically the same movie, but that setup the relationships between the characters as an integral part of their survival, not just a horse race, or in the case of Cinderella Man - a boxing match. This is a competent film but the emotional payoff leaves much to be desired.

07) The Constant Gardener

Ralph Fiennes plays a British diplomat who, in the process of investigating his wife’s murder, realizes that an international conspiracy is taking shape in the form of a pharmaceutical company exploiting the suffering inhabitants of Africa. What follows is a disjointed political thriller in the broadest sense, as the director’s visual flair (so integral to City of God) ends up overwhelming the story. The film succeeds when focusing on the love story between Fiennes and Rachel Weiz, which plays out in flashbacks. When the movie gears up to its convoluted thriller mode it simply isn’t suspenseful or thrilling, and it loses some of its paranoia - essential for a good conspiracy thriller.

06) The Island

It must be said immediately that The Island is Michael Bay’s best (if that’s possible when discussing Michael Bay) since The Rock. But don’t assume this lofty praise exempts any criticism because in all honesty an 11 year old could produce a better movie than Michael Bay. The first half of this science fiction/action movie hybrid is pretty good - Bay sets up the characters, plot and tone properly without resorting to his over-edited brand of filmmaking. His restraint was a welcome surprise. The second half though dashes any momentum the movie had going and quickly casts doubt as to whether Michael Bay actually knew what he was doing. He ramps up the action at the expense of literally everything else, and even steals his best action sequence straight out of his last movie, Bad Boys II. By the time the big climax arrived I had completely lost interest and was checking my watch to see when the pain would stop. Hey, you have to give him credit though; he didn’t end up on my worst movies of 2005 list. Next time I won’t be so nice.

05) Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

Why Hollywood decided the world needed a remake of this story says a lot on the state of the movie industry. Maybe Tim Burton decided his ego needed stroking after ruining another beloved classic, The Planet of the Apes, and while this movie is nowhere near the calamity of the latter, I still question the motivation for making this one. The original movie, with Gene Wilder playing Wonka, was flawed and slightly overrated but had three things going for it: 1) more enjoyable and memorable songs; 2) Gene Wilder as Wonka was the epitome of a weird recluse with a heart; and 3) because the movie wasn’t so obvious in the odd way it portrayed the characters, the movie was allowed to straddle the line between family film and slightly twisted satire. Tim Burton’s version tries too hard at being quirky and different. Johnny Depp is just too bizarre and would probably scare any 10 year old standing next to him. The songs, which are so integral to the first movie, are thrown in with no regard for their comprehension or quality. Maybe all of this would be forgiven if they had just left the original “Oompa-Loompa Song” in the movie.

04) The Interpreter

The plot concerns a murder inside the United Nations, a classic setup Hitchcock would have flipped for but instead, we get a stuffy Sidney Pollack directed by-the-numbers bore fest that insists on striving for a higher purpose. Maybe because the filmmakers got two A-list actors in the leads they assumed they had to do something that might win them a humanitarian award. Simply put, this wasn’t that thrilling of a thriller or an engaging think-piece; a stuffy film with too much to preach.

03) Melinda & Melinda

Woody Allen’s attempt at telling the same story twice sounds promising but the end result is a mess. The story is told once as a typical Woody Allen romantic comedy, and again as an embarrassing attempt at a tragedy. This would have been a remarkable experiment had it succeeded. The comedy sections are funny and engaging, although light and frivolous. The tragedy portions however are so overwrought and hackneyed that it more often than not ends up resembling a high school drama production. The problem is made worse by the choice of having both stories play out simultaneously, resulting in the cutting back and forth from comedy to tragedy, cheating the audience of any attachment and sense of pace. On another note, I wish the critics would stop proclaiming every new Woody Allen movie as a return to form. That’s only possible if Allen delivers a movie consistently good from beginning to end, whether or not it’s a comedy or a tragedy.

02) Sin City

Sin City has to be one of the most blatant examples of style over substance. Adapted from the Frank Miller graphic novel, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller devised an amazing looking film; using digital color manipulation and film noir stylizations to the extreme results in an incredibly impressive spectacle. After the film ended however, I wondered where I left my shopping list and if the grocery store was still open because I needed more milk, you can never have enough milk…well, you get the point. Why was this milk-run so all consuming? Simple, I couldn’t care less about any of the characters or their motivations for shattering skulls into a concrete wall. Although Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke pull off an impressive acting job, the film doesn’t give the characters much to do other than posing and looking cool. The fact that the studio has re-released the movie on DVD in a different edit proves the story is arbitrary when you have nice toys to play with.

01) Crash

Ok class, repeat after me: RACISM IS BAD. Got that? Good, there will be an exam later. Instead of delivering a movie that intelligently debates the nature of racism and why it continues to go on, Crash relies on clichéd plot points and even worse characterizations that lazily scratch the surface of the issue. Crash beats the audience over the head so consistently with the same note over and over again that you want to shout “Ok, I get it, get on with it!”, until you realize there is no “getting on with it”, this is the movie, that’s it. It’s not all clichéd though, the movie has its moments and overall it’s not bad, with some notable performances from Terrence Howard and Matt Dillon. I also admired the attempt at dealing with racism in a Hollywood film, which is rarely ever attempted at all. Problems with the film arise however when broad strokes are used to deliver the message, cheapening the entire debate. If the movie had been about just one of the stories presented in the final film then it would have been better and harder hitting. Now class, to repeat: RACISM IS BAD. Sandra Bullock’s character slipped and fell down the stairs because racism is bad. She hurt her ankle! See how bad that is? Oh wait, the Hispanic maid helped her in the end…cue the sappy violins.

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