I was looking for a movie to watch the other night and after doing a bit of searching, came across Barry Lyndon. The movie came out in 1975 and was directed by Stanley Kubrick, a man whose movies are almost always interesting. I’ve seen a lot of Kubrick’s movies such as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and found all of them worth watching. Somehow though I had missed out on Barry Lyndon. I was aware of the movie but I just never thought it looked interesting enough to spend time watching. I checked out its IMDB rating which was an 8.1 and followed that by checking out its Rotten Tomatoes rating which was 78% Tomatometer (critics) and 92% Popcornmeter (the rest of us). Normally, I ignore the critics opinions since they’re often pushing an agenda instead of reviewing a movie but the 92% Popcornmeter rating was encouraging. Average people seemed to really like this movie. I was convinced.

So do I agree with 92% of the viewers? Nope but it’s not that simple.

The cinematography is incredible. This may be the most beautiful movie ever filmed, you could pause it at any point during it’s running, take a screenshot and you would have a work of art that could be displayed at a museum. I’m not exaggerating, it really is that good.

Not far behind the cinematography in quality are the costumes and locations. You can tell the people who made this really cared about what they were doing and put the effort in to make sure it was perfect.

The problem though is that the movie run’s over three hours and is just not that compelling. IMDB describes the story as ‘An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband’s aristocratic position in 18th-century England.’ OK, that seems reasonable enough and has potential for a good story but it just never delivers it. The three hours is spent just watching Barry Lydon, move from situation to situation while moving up the social ladder. He doesn’t do anything all that interesting to accomplish this feat, it’s more a matter of luck and being at the right place at the right time.

Then there’s the character Barry Lyndon himself and Ryan O’Neal the man who plays the part. Both totally lack charisma. IMDB described Lydon as an ‘Irish rogue’ which seems to imply some sort of interesting, whimsical personality, but Lydon/O’Neal doesn’t have one. The character is laid back, never says anything all that interesting, isn’t funny, doesn’t come across in the least bit charming, and does nothing that would make him standout in a crowd. Why would anyone ever center a story about this man?

I’m not blaming O’Neal for this, perhaps he’s a fine actor that just wasn’t given anything to work with and even if it was his fault, Kubrick was in charge and could have done something about it. Since he didn’t, I’m assuming that the performance was exactly what Kubrick was looking for.

Is it worth watching? Yes, but mostly for the spectacle and the visuals. If you want a great story, look somewhere else. I put this in the same class as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, both movies are spectacular and special but the stories don’t do the production justice.