This won best picture?

Rating: 4/10 (23 March 2018)

I make a habit to watch every movie that wins best picture regardless if I have interest or not. So when The Shape of Water won I had to see it. I do not think there has been a movie since Crash (2004) that did not deserve best picture more than this movie.
Pros:
Visually beautiful, well acted and captured the early 60's/cold war pretty well.
Yes nice shots and cinematography. The acting was great, especially from the main actress Sally Hawkins. Watching it one feels like they are experiencing the era.
Cons:
Plot holes abound, dumb story, dumb characters, pointless character threads and a weird/silly premise.
The biggest problem is the pointless character threads and dumb characters. For example the neighbor is gay and is shown hitting on a man who reacts poorly to his advances, I am fine with this if it furthers the story but it does not in any way. All the sudden the main character is apparently part what ever the creature is at the end with little hints and no explanation.
The characters are dumb, why isn't the creature always chained? Security seems lax, there should be an armed guard stationed in the room at all times, also there are no cameras in the room?
While this is not a bad movie by any measure, it is certainly not great. This movie did not deserve best picture, there are better movies that came out in 2017. Below average movie overall.