Olivier's accent was not risible, and only his very early performances ("Fire Over England", for instance) were over-the-top. William Wyler was the director who taught Olivier how to tone down his acting, in 1939. If by "over-the-top" you mean larger than life, yes Olivier was larger than life. But he is in no way overrated or awful. He was one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) actors of the twentieth century. His accent was part of the character, much as Meryl Streep's foreign accents are part of the foreign-born characters she often plays.
And if there is anyone who habitually engaged in over-the-top acting it was Charlton Heston, whose performance in "Ben-Hur" is overrated, while his performances in "Khartoum" ,and especially in Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet", are underrated.
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