Once upon time I used to watch documentaries about physics and physicists like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephan Hawking, and I was so passionate about them. I was and I am still overwhelmed by stories of famous scientists and how they see the world.
However, after years I discovered that watching movies about physics is not like doing physics on the ground. I said one day that people who see physics as boring subject are wrong, but I now recognize that it was true in their eyes, and it is the case for me sometimes. Concerning scientists, I think they enjoy what they do, because studying physics deeply means intention to discover new laws of physics and find out how things work; what a pleasure!
If you want to hear the truth about physics, I shall tell you as I got my first BA in physics, at the faculty of sciences of Agadir (Ibn Zohr). For instance, physics is a serious subject, and I do not say that other subjects are not serious. It is so hard for many people not only those I know, but on a global level, it seems that it is the most “scary” subject in the eyes of students. Reading a physics course is not like reading a novel (literature) or an article on second language acquisition (SLA in Linguistics), because it usually requires more mental effort than other subjects do.
Moreover, physics combines both mathematical and natural knowledge. It is a discipline that studies nature by using mathematics as the main language to express its concepts, though one should not think that physics is mathematics. So what is it like to solve a problem of physics? It means reading the course and paying attention to every single word, number or letter. Then doing many exercises to get your mind familiarized with the new concepts you learnt. At the end, you work on the problem relying on previous knowledge and you skills in mathematics and the way you understand natural phenomena.
When I read a course of physics, I feel sometimes that my mind is about to blow up shortly after starting reading; especially if the material is new to me. Thus, one should distinguish between the way movies present physics and how physics actually is on the ground. Nonetheless, one should not frighten physics, because he or she can actually combine both of them: the pleasure of watching movies about physics and doing physics in the “real world”.
Physics and maths might not seem to be boring if you could establish a strong relationship with them. However, you are not supposed to understand mathematics or physics or see them as “exciting” subjects. This is how the world is. There is so much diversity in everything. If you are not smart in physics, you could be in other fields; even if not related to studies.
At the end, I would add that you cannot succeed in physics or mathematics if you just limit yourself to drama movies, but rather you have to get used to how physics really is in the real world, regardless of what the “real world” means.