Dead Poets Society: Did It REALLY Hold Up?

Okay, so I finally re-watched Dead Poets Society after probably 15 years. I remember being moved as a teenager. Like, truly. I thought Robin Williams was a genius, and I was ready to rip pages out of my textbooks in defiant solidarity. Now? I'm... conflicted. Don't get me wrong, Williams is excellent. Keating's charisma is undeniable, and the whole 'Carpe Diem' message is still pretty potent. The scene where they all stand on their desks? Yeah, I still felt a little something. But the whole setup just feels so... contrived now. The stuff with Neil Perry and his dad? Heartbreaking, absolutely, but also a bit heavy-handed, right? Like, this is the only way rebellion can end? And the ending, with the handful of students standing up? Look, I get it, symbolic, but did it have any real impact? And let's be honest, some of the acting from the younger cast hasn't aged well. Ethan Hawke is fine, but some of the others... yikes. Also, Knox Overstreet's pursuit of Chris Noel is genuinely creepy viewing through a 2024 lens. Maybe it's just that so many movies have ripped off the 'inspirational teacher' trope since then, but it all feels so... predictable. Still worth a watch, especially if you've never seen it, just temper your expectations a bit. It's not quite the earth-shattering experience I remembered. Did anyone else feel the same way on a recent rewatch? One last thing, and maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I wonder how many teenagers actually did take Keating's message too far and ended up making genuinely bad decisions because they misinterpreted 'seize the day' as 'abandon all common sense.' I'm just saying, nuance matters, and I'm not sure this movie always delivers on that.