It's not the concept, it's the way the film presents it

Rating: 1/10 (17 January 2017)

Fight Club is that one film you always hear about in colleges and universities, hailed as some sort of 'stick it to the man rebellion' story with all these pretentious meanings that apparently need to be analyzed in great depth to the point where I can't start a conversation about films without hearing Fight Club come up at least once. Pseudo-intellectuals, perverts, frat boys and emos all get obsessed with this one like moths to a flame. Of course, it would be the most spoiled, coddled and secure of society's demographic that enjoy Fight Club because they say it speaks so much to the hurt and anger they apparently experience on a day-to-day basis. I'm sure they'd change their tune and perhaps value humanity over themselves more if they'd grown up in earlier eras, but that's getting rather off-topic.
Fight Club is not a terrible film. It has interesting characters, a decent plot and it follows the original book very well. The soundtrack is dated, the themes are dated, the dialogue is vulgar simply for the sake of being vulgar, and the entire thing as a whole is just trying way too hard to appeal to a certain type of entitled, self-absorbed and immature Generation X/ Millennial crowd (although really I think films are subjective and can be enjoyed by anyone). Fight Club is offensive in every sense of the word, disgustingly crass at times, weird, overly long, and yet I still liked it - but I think it's incredibly overrated for what it is, and I don't think the viewers of it really seem to grasp the full idea it was trying to put out there.
The film is more or less a very nihilistic portrayal of a young man rebelling against modern corporate capitalism and society in general by forming an underground fight club with his SPOILER ALERT!!! imaginary friend and alter-ego Tyler Durden. Durden is a character, but at the same time an embodiment of everything bad, wasteful, annoying, volatile, cruel, narcissist and utterly pointless albeit intellectual that the main character himself is putting out into the world by his own attitude. Anarchy and rebellion, and the aftermath of them, remains one of the biggest themes in Fight Club alongside being an entertaining comedy. However, many viewers of the film just pick up on the vulgar one-liners about women and masturbation and sex, the heavy violence and Tyler's selfish view that humans exist to please themselves, not to care about others, and that the world, everything and everyone in it is just a game to be played. Viewers of Fight Club I've noticed retain the idea that if you show emotion, compassion, pity, sadness or kindness, you're an overly sensitive baby. "Real men" cause chaos, have sex constantly, swear their mouths off, go out of their way to offend others and don't give a damn about anyone else but #1. And naturally, when the main character grows up and matures slightly in the end, people find this confusing. Basically, the main character thought he knew how cruel and ugly the world was, but he was just a bored kid and a hypocrite. In fact, the majority of young adults are hypocrites who think the world revolves around them and their views. I was that way when I was that age, too. I went through a "pro-pollution" phase where I littered on purpose and refused to recycle. Why? Just to stir up trouble. I went through a goth phase where I wore black lipstick and thick black eye makeup to make a panda bear green with envy. Why? Just for shock value and to tick off my teachers. I went through an emo phase, cutting my arms with plastic cutlery and dying my hair black with pink streaks, listening to depressing music and whining about being depressed, while the popular blonde cheerleader sitting in the desk next to mine really WAS suicidal and it went totally unnoticed. Why? Because I was too wrapped up in my own teenage angst garbage to bother helping anyone or anything else. I wanted attention, I wanted to be noticed, but looking back on it a few years later, I realize how insignificant it all is. All teenagers are dumb. I have never come across an intelligent teenager. I've come across many intellectual teenagers, but not intelligent ones. Durden is exactly the figure most teenagers, teenage guys and college guys especially, emulate.
...Okay, that's really getting repetitive now. Like the films 'Donnie Darko' and 'A Clockwork Orange', I think the themes of chaos, nihilism and anarchy are important, but Fight Club is so overrated for what it is. How it has such a high rating over films like 'The Killing Fields' and 'Threads', I'll never understand. Reviewers keep raving about its aesthetics and its depth, but it's no more deep than many other films. ANY film with a social commentary is considered "deep". Fight Club I think just hit the world at the right time, plus it's making a comeback for many nostalgic hipsters, so it will definitely continue to be highly regarded for many years to come, which is not necessarily a bad thing, yet Fight Club shares what, exactly, with the world? Young adults are jerks? Have I missed some vital bit of info to make Fight Club so popular and beloved, or what?