15 Most Overrated Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

11. The Tree Of Life

There's always been a question in art about the point where intentional meaning ends and handwaving pretentiousness begins, and it's that divide that The Tree Of Life personifies. This is a film with such incredibly grandiose presentation that it clearly wants to be about something, but is so vague in what it actually shows that you can read whatever you want into it. Does that mean Terrence Malick's science documentary/family drama mashup is a moving exploration of life itself, or a poorly made mess intellectuals desperately want to be profound.

In some cases there's room for debate - not everyone appreciates Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, but even its staunchest detractors will admit P.T. had a coherent central idea - but that isn't true here. There is, in the simplest possible terms, no point to anything in The Tree Of Life. Oh, you can find some deep ideas hidden in there, but it's all on your part as the viewer and not offered up by the film. Take those admittedly well-done creation sequences and whack them in any other movie and you can read significance into it.

The only thing that stops The Tree Of Life stumbling its way to the top of this list is that it did ultimately prove rather divisive - for every person calling in the new 2001, there's someone happy to denounce it as the trash it is.