Overrated Stuff!

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2002)

I totally agree to others whose comments you can find below: "A Beautiful Mind" is a good movie, but really nothing special; it's moving, well-acted, sometimes funny and you actually do care for the main character but it's neither a milestone in film history (or at least a truly great film) nor the best picture of the year, dear AMPAS; these attributes totally apply to "The Fellowship Of The Ring"! It has to be pretty obvious for anybody who had the chance to compare both pictures that the latter one, this meaningful fantasy roller coaster-ride of our lives has been robbed at the Oscars'! And I'm just a movie-lover... Anyway, it has to be mentioned that both Connelly (pretty well done on uncommon ground) and Crowe (much better than in "Gladiator") give convincing performances although the script does not serve them well (especially Connelly has to play a one-and-a-half-dimensioned character, the other supporting characters simply aren't supposed to be more than one-dimensional). That's the main problem: Akiva Goldsman? Oscar winner? In such a strong competition - "Memento", "LOTR"??? Unbearable. Scandalous and a slap for those who transferred Tolkien's huge novel into an overwhelmingly satisfying movie experience. The script has a twist you will recognize after the first half, but, oh boy, that's nothing we've never seen before, and the second half simply is waaay too long and pathetic (the pen scene... you could see it coming!). For about half an hour you wait for story development and when you get it, the movie's almost over. Come on! Since I direct myself, I fully appreciate Ron Howard's good work, making something watchable out of a dull script but again - Oscar for that??? Even Ridley Scott would have deserved it more for his cinematic hurricane. And the best indeed was Peter Jackson! How about this: nobody remembers the winner films of 1941 and 1968 more than the Oscar losers in these years, "Citizen Kane" and "2001", and in a few decades, you'll talk about the "LOTR"-trilogy as of some of the greatest movies ever made, wondering if you still know what "A Beautiful Mind", this little, not extraordinary film was all about.