over rated

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 2004)

Starting with perhaps the greatest opening images of all time, it doesn't take long, less that thirty minutes to plunge into some always flashy and really dull stuff for over an hour. But that was Welles for you: ayycee deeceeing his way from moment to moment through some of the most brilliant and boring stuff a great film maker could conjure up, his soon to be likewise guy Fellini another. But I guess they couldn't help themselves. Only near the end, say the last thirty, thirty five minutes does the film start to revive itself, and become truly great again.
One thing that the other reviewers have left out here: turn the sound off and you lose half the brilliance of this film. Kane has one of the great opening and closing themes by Bernard Herrman. Without that score it would lose much of its seductive power.
So an absolute ten for the first thirty, thirty five minutes: four or five at best until the final thirty minutes, then back to ten again. Overall I have never been able to give Kane more than a six, tops. But make no mistake, when it is great, it is astonishing.