It's good, but not worthy of Best Picture.

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2003)

'A Beautiful Mind' IS a good movie. The acting is quite good, the story itself is ho-hum, but it just doesn't have what it takes to be a Best Picture.
I have to admit that I was pretty impressed with Russell Crowe's performance. I might just have to go all the way and say that I wouldn't have been upset if he would have won that Oscar. He did a terrific job; he let his emotions flow, didn't seem to annoy me...no complaints here. Okay, I have a complaint. I did not agree with the casting of Jennifer Connelly. Am I truly the only one that thought that her role was extremely small? I mean she just didn't have that big of a part. She won her Oscar for some reason, not really sure why. Ed Harris was alright. He wasn't anything spectacular, but he certainly was better than Connelly. I can't really remember any of the other actors just because they were all males, plus they looked somewhat similar to each other.
I'm not too thrilled with the story itself. I had never even heard of John Nash before. It seemed interesting, but then boring after a while, then it picked up, but became tiresome again. It was a bit long, so I was somewhat relieved when it finally did come to an end.
Okay, 'A Beautiful Mind' is good, but it did not deserve to be named Best Picture of the year. I'm not sure that I would have even thought to put it in the nomination category. The thing is is that Ron Howard did a wonderful job. I'm a big fan of Howard; loved him for years. He's an amazing director and his direction of the film is handled so well, but for some reason the movie just did not deserve that award. He, however, did deserve his long awaited Oscar as it was rightfully awarded. That didn't really make sense what I just said, but the main point that I'm trying to get across is that Howard did a great job.
'A Beautiful Mind' is a good film to watch if you have the time and patience for a pretty slow paced movie. Normally that would bug me to no end, but it's not as bad here. It does lag though, at times. It may have been nominated for a load of awards (winning half), but was still in need of that extra touch to really make it shine.