Good Story, But Not Worth 2+ Hours Of Your Life

Rating: 4/10 (18 October 2014)

I haven't seen this movie in 4 years. The last time I remember seeing this movie was when I was on a Cross Country team at college before a Cross Country race, just watching a motivational movie. I saw the whole movie one other time at the movie theater earlier and while my parents own a copy, it's not a movie I'd put on if I wanted a movie night. I think this movie is way too overrated. Before I talk about the cons for this movie, I'll talk about the pros. It's by all means a good story, I mean it would be somewhat interesting to read an article about the true story from the movie. It's interesting to think of the real story of Michael Oher, now a professional football player. I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler, but since it's based on a true story and we frequently hear this movie being referenced in pop culture, I'm sure almost all of us are aware that this movie is about, A black guy who went from being homeless, to being adopted by a rich Christian Caucasian family, and with his football skills, Oher eventually becomes a famous football player. Other pros for this movie, is it is somewhat nice to see a normal looking community and normal family activities. Bullock also did a great job playing Leigh Anne Tuohy. It's also a great Christian story, seeing how Oher goes into a Christian Private School, and how a Christian family welcomes him over. So, a very positive act done by a Christian family. But, here are some of the cons from this movie. A lot of the story has to do with what I wrote above, and while there is more to it than what I mentioned and could be summarized, the movie is a little over 2 hours long. It would have been better if it were just cut down to an hour and a half to explain Michael Oher's story. From what I remember, a lot of the scenes in the movie are slow showing how a family accepts Oher into their family, just showing typical family life and football games/practices where not many interesting things happen, at a slow pace. What else is also annoying about this movie, is it seems like the characters in this movie are obsessed with Michael Oher. I mean in almost every scene Oher isn't in, the characters from the school administrators to Sandra Bullock are basically just talking about Oher as if they had nothing else or nothing better to talk about. Now to mention a few other cons, a lot of us agree that S.J. is an annoying kid which is true. SJ really seems to look up to his adopted brother Oher, we could have gotten to know S.J. a little better other than those details, like school. Let's talk about S.J.'s sister, Collins. She's a character we hardly get to know. She doesn't seem to care at all or mind how the mom just invites some random guy over at their house too live with them and eventually adopt him, like she wouldn't care if her mom did or didn't do what she did. From what I remember, we did not get to know the Dad, Sean Tuohy too well either. The movie seemed mostly about Leigh Anne Tuohy and Michael Oher, and then the next main character S.J. So, the movie shows typical slow family activities of the life of a guy who became a great football player. It's not something that I'd think most people would want to spend two hours of their life watching. There's a 2+ hour movie that came out months later that is also a more motivational movie, a movie with more motivational action scenes, a more funny movie, and not to mention the main character in that movie is black like in this movie. The movie I'm referring to is Karate Kid. I feel like Karate Kid is a much better film and should have earned more money than The Blind Side as I feel like there's a lot more interesting things to Karate Kid from the scenes in China, to showing Martial Arts. However, that movie did do really well in the cinemas, but not as well as Blind Side as Blind Side made over $250 Million. There was even a good inspirational story which I feel like is a better story than this that also shows a Christian's faith which came out a little over a year later called, Soul Surfer. I feel like that story is more motivational and inspirational. One other movie I once saw with my Cross Country team is Cool Runnings. The main characters in that movie are Jamaican and it's a great story showing Jamaican guys making the first Jamaican bobsled team, it's also more funny too and fast paced to watch. So, I'm just saying that a lot of these things in this movie aren't worth so much of your time and Hollywood seems to make a big deal about Bullock's performance and of this inspirational true story. I give this movie a 4/10.