Home Opinion Midweek Mouth-off: Out of touch?

Midweek Mouth-off: Out of touch?

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A simple question this week: Do you believe film reviewers are out of touch with the tastes of the movie-going public?

Are they too jaded to appreciate lightweight fun for what it is? Are they too wrapped up in film school terminology and auteur appreciation to communicate what really matters – whether the film is good or not? Or, alternatively, is it all simply a case of finding a critic who matches your tastes, and consistently deals with your greatest movie-watching concerns?

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: July 18, 2012

5 Comments

  1. TriangularRoom

    July 18, 2012 at 11:15

    This is exactly why I stopped reading film reviews. I’m generalising here, of course, but I felt that many reviewers saw every film through some super-critical lens, forgetting that films are for entertainment. A film doesn’t always have to be an artistic masterpiece to be entertaining. Your average movie-goer does not need a critical breakdown of the relationship between the characters. They just want to know if the film is going to keep them entertained for a couple of hours. 

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  2. Kervyn Cloete

    July 18, 2012 at 12:48

    For me, as a reviewer, it has nothing to do with being jaded. I’ve loved film for as long since I was old enough to make sense of the pictures on the big white screen. And the older I became, the more I wanted to know about how these magical pieces of imagination were made real. But the more I learned about the intricacies, the more I began to notice things like scene composition, cinematography, etc in movies, and the more I began to recognize and appreciate when they were done really well.

    And when they’re done badly though, I can’t NOT see it. It’s not, as some people would believe, as if I’m going into that cinema with the express purpose of finding fault anywhere I can. I seriously cannot help it if I spot it.

    And while I understand completely that there’s a huge portion of the audience that doesn’t care about these things, the fact is that I’m not reviewing the audience, I’m reviewing the work of a filmmaker who in most cases SHOULD know these things and how to do them properly.

    Noelle’s 1 star review of Prometheus may have been controversial, but this is exactly where she was coming from. Ridley Scott was not some kid who just discovered a video camera and Final Cut Pro yesterday. This is a seasoned veteran who made horribly amateurish mistakes. And in that regard, I can kind of agree with her.

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  3. DarthofZA

    July 18, 2012 at 13:03

    I think sometimes film credits miss the magic of a film because they are being critical. A great movie will suck you into its amosphere and pull you along where it wants you to go. When you’re overly critical, you end up letting go of that rope, and enjoy another ride not intended.

    Most recently, there was Spiderman. I went to Spiderman with my full geek fan mode turned on full, and therefore, my opinion is way too biased to count. But lets take the opinion of the 12 other people I watched the movie with. 2 of them were girls who hate anything that isn’t the TwiLight typical fair (girlfriends of my friends). A few were just action movie nuts. When we came out, I was bombarded with questions about Spiderman, and if thats how it happened in the comics, and so on. But amongst all the questions, I realised that they all absolutely loved the movie. They were able to get wrapped up into the movie, and thought it was amazing. In fact, with the exception of the 1 action nut, they all rated it higher than Avengers.

    As a critic, you guys weren’t able to look past the shortcomings, and couldn’t enjoy the movie based on its own standards. The review compared the movie to the other Spiderman movies, and wouldn’t look past that. The general public can easily enjoy a movie on its own standards and didn’t have that problem.

    Personally, I would of given the movie a 4.5 out of 5 (although i enjoyed it at a perfect 5 level), and Avengers a 5 out of 5. But a critic, who doesn’t allow him/herself to be pulled along and enjoy the ride, will give it a 3 out of 5.

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    • Uberutang

      July 18, 2012 at 15:49

      Totally with you on this one. My wife is my ‘everyman’ barometer, and she loooved Amazing Spiderman. She thought Avengers was boring and silly that they used the Locusts from Gears as the bad guy army. Now as a comic book reader I know that, that is not the case, but for her it was a plain copy paste from Gears into a Ironman and Friends movie.

      I do think that most reviewers (critics) do get carried away with the small stuff, but it is bound to happen in any ‘field’, the more you know, the more you see things.

      I usually have one or two reviewers that I go and check up on, and if they hated a movie, I know I would love it… ;P

      Reply

  4. James Francis

    July 18, 2012 at 13:04

    I think reviewers have always had this gap between their opinion and the whims of the public. But if you remove the critically-hated blockbusters – the Transformers and such – there are many smaller movies who do well because reviews draw attention to them. 

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