The movie isn't pretentious, it's the fans

I think I'VE GOT IT!

So I watched this movie many years ago with a friend who raved about how great it was. This friend thought the movie was so deep, and it made them think so much about these grand issues of connectivity and existence. So when I watched the movie, I hated it of course. It wasn't deep at all. It was silly and dumb and it really didn't make that much sense. The philosophies discussed weren't complex at all, in fact they were very basic and extreme beliefs as simple as "everything matters" or "nothing matters."

Now, many years later, I rewatch the film, wondering if time will change my opinion. I don't love the movie. I won't say it's one of my favorites. But I can say confidently that I enjoyed it for the most part, found some parts funny, and it was overall a good movie-watching experience for me.

I figured out the reason that I disliked it so much the first time. It wasn't the movie, it was my friend and how THEY sold the movie to me. This time watching it, I realized it wasn't really meant to be deep and philosophical, at least not in the ways that some construed it to be. The main characters were supposed to be funny in their quest for knowledge, the detectives meant to be ridiculous in their methods. It's a COMEDY about philosophy, NOT a philosophical mind grind. This time, the movie itself didn't come off as pretentious to me at all. It just came off as a movie, meant to be funny, quirky, showing the basic conflicts of philosophy and how people struggle to deal with their existence. I'VE GOT IT!

(Note: My thread title is generalizing. I didn't mean all fans of the film are pretentious, just some. Like any other movie.)