not Hitchcock's best

Rating: 6/10 (7 April 2004)

i've decided to see all the films i haven't already seen that are listed on imdb's top 250 list. so it was inevitable that i would end up watching 'North by Northwest'.
either i'm wrong, or the thousands who voted this movie a '9' or '10' are...but i think this is not Hitchcock's best, and i don't even consider this a worthwhile movie to spend $5 renting. and i clearly don't see this film as one of the 250 best ever. [the most recently released spy movies i have seen, 'Spy Games' and 'The Recruit', were abundantly better than this disappointing film, and they are not ranked nearly as high up.]
why? (1) in today's age, this movie's special effects (and plot) are sorely dated; (2) the plot is implausible, whether you look at it from a 2004 antiterror or 1950s Cold War perspective; (3) what some would argue are the film's strongpoints (i.e., the romantic interactions between hero and heroine, Cary Grant's numerous wisecracks, etc.) really contribute to its flaws (see (2)). saying anymore would spoil the surprise for those who are still planning to see it.
want to see the quintessential Hitchcock film? see 'Rear Window'...i rented it only the day before seeing 'North by Northwest', and its superiority is immediately evident. even the romantic chemistry between Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly is better; in fact, i dare you to come up with a better pairing. but it's obvious that 'North by Northwest' isn't even comparable in quality, beyond the fact that it, too, is a Hitchcock production.
from my interpretation of this website, anything rated above a '7' is worth seeing, and anything above '8' is a "definitely see, now!"...for that reason, i have to give this movie a '6'. this flick is a poor man's James Bond movie.