Overrated

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2008)

Birds, The (1963)
** (out of 4)
OK, would a fan of this film please explain to me why they like it? I personally think this is Hitchcock's most overrated film and I also think it's pretty poorly written and the direction is a major drop of quality from the previous ten years of Hitchcock's career but I guess I should also say that I feel the director's films went down after Psycho. I'm not sure where to start but I guess I'll start off with the structure of the picture. I'm going to guess that Hitchcock was doing a Rear Window type of thing were he uses the first 75% of the film to let viewers get to know the characters and then switches gear the last 25% of goes for the suspense. While it works perfectly in the other film I think the idea falls flat on its ass here. I think Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor are very good in their roles but I didn't feel a thing for them. I certainly wanted them to live but I didn't care about him being burdened with his mother and I didn't care about her having a wild period in her life. I really didn't care for any of the supporting players and I think the bit with Jessica Tandy just went on and on and on. I also feel that the movie runs at least half an hour to long. Again, I guess Hitchcock wanted to save the suspense for last but the build up just bored me and when we finally get to the ending I was just wanting the film to end so there wasn't any suspense for me. I know this is a beloved Hitchcock film but I really can't see anything special here. There were several people in the crowd screaming and gasping so apparently it still packs a punch with several people but it's never worked with me and I think I disliked it more this time than any previous time. It's certainly too bad Hitch didn't get to film the ending he originally wanted because it would have been a lot better.