I "got" it, and I still didn't like it.

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2000)

Nothing makes me angrier than the fans of this movie who insist "if you get it, you will love it," or even more directly, "if you didn't like it, you didn't get it." I got the film, I understood everything it was trying to convey. How could I not? Any reasonably intelligent person who truly gives this film their full attention will certainly understand all of what Kubrick was trying to say. Every plot point and allegory in this film were telegraphed, and although it has been said that one needs to "read between the lines" to understand the full intent of the film, the "lines" were so blatantly separated that one could not help but read between them. The message of this film was interesting, and would have been served better by a better script, but it was most certainly not hidden in any way, shape or form. EWS was (like all of Kubrick's films) a visual masterpiece, but it was also (like the vast majority of Kubrick's films) a failure as any sort of narrative. No matter how allegorical any film is, it still needs a plot, and that is something that EWS lacked severely. Argue all day long, if you will, about what this film meant...I won't argue with you in the slightest. I know what it meant, I just don't think the message is enough to make a film good.