WHY?

Rating: 5/10 (17 August 1999)

I'm 27 years old. I first saw this film in first year film studies at Carleton University. It was required viewing for the course. I hated the film then. I thought that maybe because I've had five years to grow and mature that I would give this film another chance and watch it for the third time in my lifetime. Guess what? My opinion has changed. I hated it then and now I just dislike it quite a bit. And the question that I have is why? Why is this film the masterpiece that people say it is? Is it really because it revolutionized film back in the 40's? Okay, so it invented the wipe and it had lots of different styles of lighting. That may make it brilliant on a technical level, but come on people, you cannot tell me that this is not one of the most boring films ever made on the face of this planet or any other planet that has theaters to watch movies in. How can you get excited about a film that creeps along like a snail moving across a highway in the middle of nowhere? I really feel like Welles is taking all of you for suckers. Because I think he set out to make a boring film just to see if audiences would have an orgasm over it because of its technical brilliance. I still think he is laughing. I know I would be.
There was really nothing to like in this film except for one thing. I can honestly admit that Welles' acting will stand up well today. He does play Kane with energy and he is believable. Almost all older films have cardboard actors that speak to fast, have little emotion, overact or are just plain bad actors. Kanes's second wife in the movie was so laughable that I eventually fast forwarded most of her lines in the film. She whined and cried and moaned and she was boring. You ever seen Aliens? Remember Newt, the little girl that Ripley takes care of, well that is Dorothy Corningmore's character as a little girl. What a joke.
Citizen Kane has pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for six decades!!! Critics, well I can understand them liking this piece of garbage, they have to or they look like they are incompetent fools. That is their job. But the general public? Are you people on a really bad acid trip? I welcome any emails that would please try to explain to me the greatness in this film. Please, contact me. I really am dying to know. Why is this a tragic film? Why is this an American masterpiece? I am begging for some insight, because I haven't heard anything or read anything that says how great it is. All I have read is a bunch of people conforming to popular opinion that this is THE MOVIE to see.
I can name about 500 films that I have seen in my life time that are better than this and some of them I probably don't even like that much. I would even go so far as to say that a really good Friday the 13th film is better than this joke of a film.
Well, I guess diplomacy is not one of my strong points, but I really don't understand the beauty, importance, tragedy, wonder or any other compliment that has been bestowed on Citizen Kane. It just doesn't do it for me. You want to watch a great film that has everything that this film apparently has? Watch Jaws, JFK, Apocalypse Now, Aliens, Mississippi Burning. That is just a handfull of films that are what I consider to be the best films ever made. I don't think that this is on my list of worst films ever made anymore ( it used to be ), but it easily tops my list of most overhyped, ridiculous boring films to ever disgrace our screens.