Am I missing something?

Rating: 1/10 (6 February 2010)

So I finally got around to watching Casablanca, one of the greatest movies ever made, or so I've always heard. Does it live up to its hype? In a word, no. It was maudlin and melodramatic; Ingrid Bergman was homely, no matter how many softening effects were used in the close-ups of her face (did a rodent gnaw off the sides of her nose? To say nothing of that masculine jawbone and those underdeveloped lips...); Humphrey Bogart was about as slick and charismatic as the Hunchback of Notre-Dame; and the story was undisguised war propaganda. One would have to have the mental age of 5 to think this movie was in any way great. Watchable, yes, but not great, and certainly not deserving of being on the IMDb top 250.
The movie was fast-paced, which was both good and bad: good because it would've been unbearable to watch otherwise, and bad because it didn't give the viewer time to get attached to any of the characters (which is just as well, since as I've said, it was war propaganda and so the less effective, the better).
Apart from a few good one-liners and patches of clever dialog, the only other positive thing I can say about it is that it was technically well made, in particular the lighting and the dynamic camera work (though I'm not personally a fan of this style of camera work, as I find it detracts from story and atmosphere). It was, however, irritating how the lighting would change whenever there was a close-up on somebody's face. What was the purpose of this? To try to mesmerize the viewer? Talk about corny.
If you've never seen Casablanca before, don't feel you have to, because you ain't missing much, "kid." It's about as overrated as it gets.
1 out of 10 stars, to offset the deranged "I'm giving it 10 stars but I wish I could give it more" reviews this cinematic mediocrity has been getting.