Not impressed.

Rating: 6/10 (3 September 2013)

I'll go ahead and speak plainly about events from the movie, not caring too much about spoiling or not. If you haven't seen the movie and do not want the major plot twists told beforehand you should avoid this review.
I must admit I was one of those guys who went on a hunt for this movie just because it is the highest rated movie on this website. It was second place on general public top 250 when I decided I had to see it. Not to mention most recent high-rated films I am familiar with to a point of remembering, or hearing about; this one wasn't the case.
To tell the truth I watched the movie three times now and I still haven't seen anything resembling greatness to be the highest acclaimed film in the most important website about cinema in the planet.
It's not bad, but I found overshadowed by the immense hype surrounding it. It's certainly 7/10 material in my book, but the idiotic fanboys along with the constant praise for it being superior film-making just slides it down a notch or two.
The story about a guy that is innocently convicted and how his life develops inside the prison with a friend named Red and a few surprises here and there is well told. The so-called message it carries? Well, it seems people are all about that "hope" thing since he indeed is innocent of the crime he's in for, and how eventually he escapes prison leaving behind a hostile environment that never really believed in him, a warden that exploited his dry as much as he could, and of course beating the error of the system in his own game.
He loses his whole life while at it though, but who cares, it's all about hope. It's hard to relate anything to real life since even the finale seems too wonderful to be true. The guy just goes to an obscure island and lives happily ever after. Even Red drops by when he's finally out on parole. Great deal.
After 30 years digging a tunnel with a miniature pickaxe after being wrongly convicted for a crime he did not commit and stealing from the corrupt warden in the process sounds the absolute catharsis for some, I thought it was sad, sad that he lost his whole life in a prison, sad that he had to put up with all that crap for so long, sad that he must have been reintegrated after a while if somehow his story went on. Call me a pessimist, but that's not hope.
I sometimes wonder what so many people saw in this movie that I was the only one on planet earth who did not quite "get it". The only thing this movie taught me more than anything else is that democracy is not always the best regime. What did every one suddenly see that back in 1994 people did not? Maybe it's an internet this right? Internet stuff, that serious business. This strange Leviathan that transforms unknown South-Korean pop singers in music sensations and record-holders for most watched movie on the planet. The internet, maybe someone watched it and thought it would be funny to invent a secret message, so deep, so unworldly, so incredible and anyone who could not "see it" was instantly deemed unworthy.
That monster that drives everyone to think this average movie should be considered some kind of demigod due to its averageness. We see that because we're average, enlightened beings see greatness, colossal messages within that lifts the human spirit, cleanse our souls with its reach.
The movie was good, and that's about it.