The Emperor's New Clothes

Rating: 1/10 (1 September 2002)

We all know the story about the emperor riding butt naked down the street and all his loyal subjects chorusing "what a wonderful, splendid suit of clothes" - until some kid chimes in with the observation "but he's as naked as a jaybird"!! Well, for me "Citizen Kane" - along with that other overblown, overrated yawn-fest "Gone With The Wind" which was made a couple of years earlier - is one of those "emperor's new clothes" movies that has fed on its own myth and which most people seem terrified of slagging off for fear of being branded a philistine. Sure, it may have been a "pioneering" and "revolutionary" kind of movie in its day. But does that alone qualify it for the tag of "The Greatest"? I think not. The Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane. They were pioneers. They revolutionized transport. But a lot of others came along afterwards and did it much better. And so it is with movie-making. Citizen Kane and GWTW should be accepted for what they are - groundbreaking in their day, but twee and dated by modern standards.