For the most part, movie critics tend to be on the money when it comes to judging great movies - visit Rotten Tomatoes and take a look at the top films of any given year and it's hard to find any real stinkers thrown into the mix. But sometimes critics can't see the wood for the trees and end up singing the praise of movies that really don't deserve their accolades. There are certain kinds of films which are more prone than others to this dynamic, with historical dramas and biopics among the main offenders, as if the critic feels that denigrating the movie is somehow disrespecting the subject matter at the film's core. At other times it's as if the arrival of a half-decent movie in the midst of a sea of mindless and predictable Hollywood fodder clouds their judgement - thankful that finally something worth watching has come along, they overrate the film's effectiveness and significance for lack of something genuinely impressive to write about. In their eagerness to discuss the next best thing on release - particularly when said movie is overhyped - their ability to judge a film's real worth often becomes impaired. And that, inevitably leads to avalanches of praise for films that seriously aren't worth being considered among the greatest ever...
