the most overrated movie of the year

Rating: 5/10 (24 January 2009)

Slumdog Millionaire's premise is so cliché that I cannot believe the hype; it's the story of a poor boy in love with a girl and some bad guys in between them. I don't know how many movies I have seen with this exact same premise. There must be literally thousands of Asian, Mid-Eastern movies with exact same story. Many people here complain about insult to India as a country. How about insult to all the other great movies that have not been recognized by the Academy? How about the great Afghan, Iranian movies that are actually much smarter and original than Slumdog Millionaire but somehow never get to be seen by the American Audience? What about the insult to them? Slumdog Millionaire's commercial success solely depends upon the producers, and nothing more (and maybe due to the fact that most Americans are not familiar with this kind of story or maybe hungry for unrealistic, almost fairy-tale like love story, innocence kept through hard-times). There is not one original idea in the entire movie. I easily predicted everything before it happened, including the ending. No surprises, no clever screenplay, no great acting.... I guess the only cinematic achievement in the movie was the excellent photography. The sceneries from India's ghettos were just amazing in the sense of photographic quality. Lastly, Academy should be ashamed of nominating this movie as the best picture not to mention in many other categories. The Kite Runner, a far superior picture didn't get single nomination. What an insult to the artists who worked in that movie.