Shockingly empty, mostly bland and often kind of boring, The Artist is a fine technical exercise but offers little else beyond the gimmick of a silent film in 2011. Worst of all, The Artist doesn’t even make a particularly convincing argument about why we should care for silent film.And I mean, not even the New Yorker or the Village Voice got this right - they both heaped on the praise. But of course their reviews were by full-time professional film critics who just adore any movies about making movies because they can play "spot the homage."
What I don't understand is why anybody who doesn't get a paycheck from watching movies would think this was anything more than dull and predictable. I couldn't wait for this to get to its final predictable denouement.
Seriously, I've seen episodes of The Little Rascals that were more interesting, better plotted and more nuanced than this.