The greatest dull movie ever made.

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2005)

When watching a film, the average viewer comes to expect a few things. They expect a beginning, a middle, and an end. They expect building drama and a climax. In this film, they get both, only the film itself is the drama and climax--the beginning, middle, and end--and not the story.
Orson Welles takes all of his talents in radio, theatre, and writing and tackles a new genre, the cinema. In the process, he does things unheard of in contemporary techniques and stuns critics... well, a few of them. Most of the critics and the general audience "didn't get it", so to speak. That of course doesn't stop its fame, for it has another pull that keeps it alive for years before it becomes embraced fully: a nice helping of controversy, both with the "outrageous" techniques and the, uh, political commentary.
Today, we have a film that will never die and shouldn't. Breaking traditions in more ways than one, Welles has assembled celluloid with more poetry than what has come to be expected of cinema both then and now. Still, poetry isn't always liked, and contemporary audiences may have issue with the general dullness of the story, for after all, the career of Welles and the controversy of the film are sparks and explosions, the Rosebud mystery is the intrigue, and the importance is the art-value, but the movie itself trudges along, hardly leaving room for any entertainment.
Part of this is intentional, and used to great effect. The movie is, after all, about failure, and regardless of how many times we watch it, it is begun and end with "No Trespassing". One problem modern audiences may definitely have is understanding that this film doesn't even pretend to answer its own mystery, despite the so-called revelation at the end. It's an exploration film where the exploration is the finale, without goal. Because of the perfection of the failure theme, the movie leaves the audience just as empty as the characters... and then what is the audience supposed to do with it? Thus, it all becomes a matter of approach. This film should be seen, but it doesn't necessarily have to be appreciated. It's worthy of its place as a critically-acclaimed classic, and yet it's still debatable whether it is worth it.
--PolarisDiB