Monumental Bore-athon By Terminally Overrated Director

Rating: 3/10 (7 August 2008)

Is Stanley Kubrick the most overrated filmmaker ever? He certainly had prodigious technical gifts, "Barry Lyndon" may not be be the best looking film ever but it certainly comes close, stunning at times in it's use of natural light. He acted like an artist, slow-working and perfectionist. He was certainly uncompromising. In short Kubrick looked and acted like a genius, luckily for him in the world of cinema this was enough to get him proclaimed a genius. All of his films were met by gushing reviews - witness the response to the execrable "Eyes Wide Shut". Yet any true critical response to his films should attempt to explain the utter emptiness of his post "Dr Strangelove" work. "Barry Lyndon" is important here because for all its beauty this is as vapid as film gets. Kubrick drains all life out of characters, the wit and irony of Thackeray totally lost. Ryan O'Neal shows that TV support roles are his natural home (Paper Moon is the only film he didn't ruin), and the rest of the cast are forgettable. Kubrick is art-cinema for those who are scared of real art - it challenges one after all, he is great cinema for those who believe that great cinema consists of nice looking pictures. He is intellectual cinema for the simple minded. There is more life and art in 10 minutes of a Jason Statham film than in this bore. So yes I believe he is overrated and this piece of dross is first exhibit in the case.