So-so star vehicle doesn't hold up

Rating: 5/10 (25 April 2020)

I was a kid when this came out, but only just saw it for the first time. Having heard all my life it was one of the great movies, I'm pretty disappointed.
It's an okay "buddy film" focussing on two big movie stars, but I suspect their fame and star quality makes people think the film is better than it is.
The escape from pursuers part works well enough, although there is little suspense and no real plot twists. The personal side doesn't work at all. Butch and the Kid banter and bicker mildly but their relationship doesn't change or develop or get more interesting. Famous scenes, like the one where Newman kicks the big brute in the balls, fall flat, maybe because they've been so often imitated, and since half the movies made since then have some guy kicked in the balls. For every scene that lands, like the fine one where they're forced to choose between capture and jumping off a cliff, there are several that don't.
Poor Katherine Ross's role is thankless and dull. She just stands there, blank-faced, passively agreeing to do whatever the guys tell her. WIth few lines to speak, she never really enters into the story or affects it. It doesn't help that Ross lacks charisma and her face and voice are inexpressive. It feels like she's barely in the movie. A love triangle hinted at early on, which could have made her character interesting, is a red herring. Her character goes nowhere. She's meaninglessly there and then meaninglessly not there.
The lengthy sepia montages in the beginning and middle eat up screen time and add nothing beyond the dubious pleasure of watching movie stars look cute, smiling and riding carnival rides. Even the robberies are cursory and repetetive, aside from the fine scene where they use too much dynamite on a train.
The movie's worst aspect may be Burt Bacharach's incredibly inappropriate, facetious and annoying music. Did it seem innovative in 1969? The BA-DI-DI-DI-DAH chorus that babbles endlessly over yet another unnecessary wordless montage may be the most irritating and flagrantly wrong musical scoring in Hollywood history. With Bacharach's sterling track record, you wonder how he could have gone so wrong in this film.
I'm guessing this film was overrated like a much worse movie was last year, the staggeringly dull and pointless ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, because the presence of two big charismatic male stars blinded many viewers to the weakness of the project.