Groundbreaking, yet mediocre

Rating: 4/10 (5 September 2013)

Citizen Kane laid, in 1941, the visual foundations of movies as we know them today, with groundbreaking shots, travellings and other matte paintings, as well as the flashback based non linear storytelling structure which has been used over and over since then, and this technical and innovative aspect is probably why this movie is considered by a lot of critics and institutions "the best of all time".
Because if you think about the content, this is far from a masterpiece. The script is a long, disjointed and ultimately little interesting retrospective of Charles Kane life, where even the "Rosebud" plot turns out to be a letdown.
If a remake, similar in every way, of Citizen Kane was made today, it would be considered average at best, which shows well that the historical context and the movie being some sort of pioneer influences the judgements a lot, at least more than the inherent quality of the film and its script in particular.