Originally written March 4, 2012

Citizen Kane is one of those movies I always heard is like one of the greatest movies of all time. Many critics call it the best film ever made, and so since it’s the fifth movie I had to watch for my Cinema class, that kind of hype gave it something to look forward to.

And then the movie starts. And wow is it boring. The beginning of it is a bunch of voice over shit explaining something that I didn’t catch because I was bored to tears. Then when the actual movie starts I find out it’s about a newspaper tycoon named Charlie Kane. Kane dies at the beginning of the movie, and his final word is “Rosebud.” This is a man who was so well liked and had so many interesting things to say, so a reporter type guy takes it upon himself to find out why that would be the last word of a man like this, and what it could possibly mean. He visits a variety of people Kane knew, and we’re seen his life through a series of flashbacks.

Just put it this way, it’s not that great. The reason why critics say it’s so great is because it’s so well made. It was very innovative for its time period and used a variety of film techniques never seen before, including deep focus and stuff like that. No doubt the movie looks good, the cinematography is great. And for that I do have to give it some credit.

But my problem is that I feel like a movie has to do more than be shot well to be great. It has to…you know, have an interesting plot, or at least some cool characters. Citizen Kane is just a borefest straight through. It’s entirely uninteresting, and the worst part is that the ending has absolutely no payoff. When I found out what “Rosebud” meant, I was so pissed. It felt like a big fuck you. Like, haha you wasted two hours of your life for THAT. It just isn’t that great.

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REVISION (7/3/2019): So I first saw Citizen Kane when I was in college, and as you can tell I wasn’t too big of a fan of it. I recently decided to give it another chance, so I figured I’d update on my thoughts about it 7 years later. Re-reading my original review, I don’t inherently disagree with any of it, except for possibly the movie having no payoff. I still agree with my main criticisms of it, though, and so I’m giving it the same score as I did before. However, I think this is kind of a poorly written review, so I feel like I can expand on some of my points a bit more eloquently now.

Breaking it down in the simplest way, I’ve found that the two biggest general things I consider when I say if a movie is good or not are how well it’s technically made (how the directing, acting, cinematography, etc. are), and how much I enjoyed the movie. What I’ve found is that with Citizen Kane, it flourishes in the former, but suffers immensely in the latter.

I don’t want to understate it like I did in my original review how well-made the movie is on a technical level. The movie has some phenomenal directing, and utilizes some really interesting camera shots and techniques that hadn’t been fully pioneered yet at the time. Its influence over modern filmmaking and what it’s become can’t be questioned. It’s also pretty well-acted, with a standout performance from Orson Welles himself. He breathes some real life and charisma into Charlie Kane, and so I think it’s important to mention this. Even the writing is pretty good, with some standout scenes that had some great dialogue in them.

These elements of the movie are all really well-done in a technical sense, but the problem is that they don’t add up to make an enjoyable movie. I went into my second viewing of Citizen Kane with an open mind, hoping to appreciate it more than I did back in college. However, as soon as the voice-over of the opening scene started, I was already bored to tears. I don’t even think that Citizen Kane has an uninteresting story on a conceptual level, as I would normally be interested in the kind of story it tells. I just think it’s executed so poorly here, and so it ends up being a really boring movie, devoid of any entertainment value.

The technical elements are definitely there for Citizen Kane, and so it’s not like I don’t see why the movie is held in such high esteem. However, I find these technical achievements to be ultimately meaningless when the movie fails to keep viewers interested in what they’re being shown. I can’t truly appreciate Citizen Kane’s merits, because the movie gave me nothing to be invested in. So, ultimately, I still feel just as negatively towards Citizen Kane now as I did when I first saw the movie.

2.5/5