Critics
On RottenTomatoes.com THE TOWN sits at 95% with 176 'Fresh' reviews and a mere 10 'Rotten'. Over at Metacritic it scores 74/100 with 38 positive reviews, 4 mixed reviews and no negative ones at all. Clearly, the people who are paid to watch films and tell us their opinion are enjoying THE TOWN. Whenever someone questioned whether a Ben Affleck film would be worth the price of admission I would say “95%”. That figure was in my mind, on repeat, right up until I took my seat and the previews started. My mistake here can be seen in the difference between 95% and 74/100. If it was just a 'yes or no' on the film 95% of critics said yes, but when aggregating how much out of 10 or 100 a critic enjoyed the film, it slides all the way down to 74%. They liked the film, but not *too* much.
Peers
I used to hate it when my friends would go on and on about a film I needed to see. Hated it so much that I'd take a rather juvenile step and boycott the film altogether. I didn't see THE MATRIX until 2005 (surprisingly it still blew me away, with the parts I hadn't seen parodied over and over again often being my favourite) and one day I promise I'll finally watch the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy (as a New Zealand lover of film, I've been told this amounts to treason). Not long ago, after a CineCult screening (plug) we were discussing what films were being released that week and I mentioned I'M STILL HERE was coming out. Someone in the group didn't believe me, but I assured her that it was. She asked: “Then why has everyone being talking about it for the last two weeks?”
“Because all your friends are critics,” I replied dryly.
Someone then suggested that was a great title for an indie song. Anyway, it was probably true for her and it's definitely true for me. A lot of my friends (and twitter feed!) are critics who attend advance screenings etc. and have often seen a film long before I pay $16 for the privilege. The opinions of your peers trump the opinions of critics (even when they are critics). When the people you get on with due to similar likes and dislikes tell you a film is fantastic, you're more likely to believe them than a large faceless group of reviews. And consensus for THE TOWN was looking good.
Yourself
In the end though, the opinions of everyone else are trumped by your own. All of your friends and critics and critic friends can tell you a film is amazing, but you can still choose to be skeptical. Overhype is the gap between high expectations and low results. High expectations can be influenced by external factors but they ultimately come from within. I've been defending Ben Affleck since HOLLYWOODLAND (before that he was on his own, no help from me!) and he has been having a great run. Two days before I saw THE TOWN I watched his directorial debut GONE BABY GONE for at least the 3rd time and as always, I found it endlessly fascinating. I did not find THE TOWN fascinating. I found it straight-forward, cliched and a little dull. However, if I hadn't created all this hype I'm sure I would have realised that it was a skillfully made genre film with some great performances. This is how I'm slowly starting to see it, but it'll take a second viewing for me to completely change my vote from a 'no' to a 'yes'.
So why would someone look up 'overhyped films'? It can only be a collection of films that particular author didn't enjoy.
I'd stick to 'Best of'' lists. There still feels like value there.
