Is this a joke?

Rating: 2/10 (24 June 2014)

There are many big questions in the world of cinema. However, the biggest one of them all is not how does Michael Bay/Friedberg and Seltzer/Kristen Stewart/Adam Sandler/every other untalented person who still gets work find work? Not what happened to M Night Shyamalan? Not dos every slightly successful film get a sequel? Not why are they making another Spiderman franchise? Oh no. The biggest one is: How did this manipulative, preachy, patronizing and pretentious mess win best picture? Are you kidding me? Is this some sort of joke? Paul Haggis' directional debut is about a race relations in LA as various characters collide in different story lines. Crash takes an interesting approach: It doesn't take sides and makes us question where our sympathies lie which is a good idea, but sadly it does this with the subtlety of a Fast And Furious set piece. The acting is fantastic, with Sandra Bullock standing out in a more serious role than normal, but aside from that this is the worst best picture winner ever and the most disgustingly overrated movie of all time.
Crash thinks it's deep, meaningful and emotionally powerful. It's not. It is a group of horrible characters being horrible to each other for 2 hours. That's it. Also, are we really meant to believe that these people keep bumping into each other in one of the biggest cities in America? The script is absolutely awful with all of these characters talking in ways no-one in real life talks and worst of all, the film seems to think it's being deep just because it shows the characters being nice at times and cruel at others. The direction is also dreadful, and on a cinematic level this is totally uninteresting. This is pretty much the Zero Dark Thirty of the 2000s: A genuinely abysmal movie which is only liked because it covers an important issue. From the word go the film feels forced and stupid and in the second half the never-ending stream of manipulative moments and bizarre coincidences verge on parody. We don't learn anything from this. Neither do the characters. This is just a manipulative, preachy drama which tells its audience racism is bad- all with the intelligence, depth and sophistication of a Transformers action set piece. I.....Hated It!
2/10