It's all about Jack

Rating: 1/10 (16 September 2017)

Is "overthetopness" an English word?
If it is not, then it should be. And its creation should be entirely attributed to Mr Jack Nicholson. And that's because his most famous performances in moves offer us the exact definition of the term "over- the-top". And indeed, in the specific case of "The Shining", Mr Nicholson's acting is SO over-the-top that he, alone, makes the movie almost unwatchable.
Now, just like Bob Seger asks us to blame his awkward behaviour "on the moon", we could blame it on the script, on the original story itself, or on the director (who happens to be the cinema deity known as Mr Stanley Kubrick). Maybe it was the tone of the character which forced Mr Nicholson to be such a nuisance to see. Maybe Mr Kubrick just SHOUTED all the time behind the camera: "Not like this, Jack. I want MORE. I need MORE. The public wants MORE. You are too tame. You're definitely too docile. We want a monster. Give us a monster, Jack. We deserve this. Mr Stephen King would love this, and he definitely deserves it too."
No. I do believe only Mr Nicholson is to blame. I can actually imagine himself telling Kubrick behind the cameras: "If I'm going to do this, Stanley, it's GOT to be my way". And it was. So the result was that The Shining was not a movie adaptation of a Stephen King's story. It was a Jack Nicholson's interpretation of a Stephen King's character- not of a Stephen King's story, because the original, the real story was completely butchered so that Mr Nicholson could have all the screen time his ego deserved. It's no surprise that, by the end of the movie, one could hardly understand what the hell "the shining" was supposed to be.
The director (??) of this movie is called Jack Nicholson.
The writer (??) of this movie is called Jack Nicholson.
The only actor (??) acting in this movie is called Jack Nicholson.
Some years after this horrible movie, Mr Nicholson gave us another one of his famous Oscar-worthy (what does this mean, anyway?) performances, and, once more, he tried to "steal the show", in the sense that he clearly wanted to take the film all to himself. "Batman" is still watchable, though, and a decent movie, mainly because Tim Burton did not do the same than Kubrick did, ie, he did not allow Mr Nicholson to direct the movie in his place- and so, basically, only the Joker scenes are the bad thing about Batman. And not because Joker, the character, is bad. That was because Mr Nicholson is a case of iconic actor who eventually becomes SO iconic that everybody is able to forget his "overthetopness". Everybody is even able to forget to critically analyze Mr Nicholson's performance- maybe afraid to come to the only logical conclusion after watching 2 hours of his "doing his thing": the man is a terrible actor.
This guy does not belong in the same category as Pacino, De Niro, Day Lewis, Penn, Heston or even Fassbender. He's a farce.
Now, back to "The Shining", well, back to what? I had watched Kubrick's magnificent 2001: A Space Odyssey shortly before watching "this", and I somewhat thought, well, if the same guy who directed that chef d'oeuvre put his hands on this, then it's SUPPOSED to be good. Man, I was disappointed. This movie has none of the qualities that makes 2001 the unique masterpiece that it is. Here the whole structure of the story is build so as to let Mr Nicholson run, shout, look insane and try and kill a defenseless woman and a young boy. There's no sense of depth that might allow you to understand the boy's nightmarish visions ("the shining") or even Wendy's relation to her unbalanced husband. We cannot even understand how Jack turns suddenly from a well-humored husband and father to a red-eyed psychopath in, what, 20 minutes of run time. I am currently reading the book and everything makes more sense (not much, to be honest it's not a literary masterpiece, but it's a thousand times better than the movie). Also, in the book, Danny is the real protagonist. The book is about "the shining", and "the shining" happens to Danny.
And the movie? Well, the movie is all about Jack...Jack Nicholson, not Jack Torrance, that's for sure.
To sum it up: a really bad movie, never to be watched more than once. And never to be included amongst the best horror movies ever, like it's criminally done so often.