A movie review can be a great way to find out about a show beforehand and to anticipate the best movies coming out. Nowadays, with so many movies coming out at one time, it becomes difficult to make a choice. Movie reviews help the process by narrowing down the choices. But how reliable are reviews? The article I read was a review of Thor: The Dark World. The review panned the film, citing its “disorienting 3-D effects” and likening Thor to Popeye. Reviews in general seem to have a very strong grip on people’s movie preferences. I do not think they deserve the power and influence they command.
Reviews are written by “experts” who have a lot of experience in reviewing movies. That sounds like it should be fair, but it is not. Reviewers are very elitist and point out some of the smallest things. An expert should know better than a casual moviegoer but the problem is that there is no right or wrong when it comes to opinion. A reviewer’s opinion is not any better than another person’s opinion. His or her expertise also puts him or her out of place with the common people. This means that the reviewer no longer keeps the best interest of common people in mind. A reviewer also notices different things because he searches for different things. For example, the reviewer points to a minor issue with Chris Hemsworth’s voice as something to ridicule. He makes fun of the pitch of Mr. Hemsworth’s voice, as if it really has any impact on the movie.
Another issue I have with reviews is their inherent bias. When you a group opinion, the biases tend to balance out more but when you take the opinion of only one person, there nothing checking his or her bias. This reviewer makes a lot of slanderous comments in his review when they are not necessary. After reading the review, the general feeling I got was that he was dead set on panning the movie. I understand pointing what is wrong with the plot, the acting, or character design but outright ridiculing minor problems and blowing them out of proportion shows a very clear bias against the film. His diction throughout attempts to put a negative spin on everything. When he was talking about the director Alan Tailor, he described his approach as “[flitting] awkwardly between a dank, depopulated London and the organ-pipe architecture of Asgard.” He could have just said that he did not ground the movie that well in the setting, but instead the reviewer had to calling a professional director awkward, as if he were some unpopular teenage boy. Another notable example goes back to Thor’s voice. Instead of saying that Thor’s voice was excessively low pitched he decided to say that his voice was so low, only worms can hear him. I am not sure if the wording was intentional, but he seems to imply that if you could hear him speak, you are a worm. That is exactly the kind of message I seem to get from this reviews and reviews in general. If a review pans a movie and you like it, you are a lower being.
There is also a large discrepancy in what the reviewers and what moviegoers say. One example is We’re the Millers. If you look at metacritic, the critics gave it a metascore of 44. But if you look at user reviews, the majority of them gave the film a much more favorable review. I saw the movie myself and I liked it, it was hilarious and kept me engaged to the end. I think it goes back to critics pointing out some of the minutest details and taking off points for that.
Overall this review should not be taken seriously but will inevitably deter people from a potentially great movie. American culture seems to praise and follow the words of the popular people and society loves to get behind one person. From the various movie and music award shows, to these highly charged reviews, people do not think for themselves and simply go with the popular opinion.
Link to Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/movies/thor-the-dark-world-brings-back-marvels-alien-superhero.html?ref=arts&_r=0
We’re the Millers Metacritic review
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/were-the-millers
I found your blog post interesting because I often look at movie reviewers first before I actually go to a movie because I want to check if it is worth watching. At the same time, movie reviews can be highly biased and unreliable. As you stated, reviewers give opinion just like everybody else and the only difference is that they are “experts.” Reviewers are often misrepresentation of the common people because everyone’s opinions are different. A lot of movies are made for a specific audience and the reviewers might not fit the demographics the movie is targeted towards. Also, as you pointed out, reviewers actively search for things to criticize while they are watching the movie that common people may not notice. Therefore, the common people may not share the reviewer’s opinion. Also, a reviewer who dislikes a particular movie could easily exaggerate minor problems with his wording so that the movie seems much worse than it actually is. Likewise, a reviewer that supports a particular movie could make the movie seem much better than it actually is.
However, there is not much that can be done about reviewers’ bias since bias is innate and unavoidable. All we can do is take the movie reviews with a grain of salt and understand that the review does not necessarily have to reflect your experience with the movie. Also, I think that it is not only American culture that conforms to society and rely on “experts” to think for them, all cultures throughout the world do that because it tends to be easier for us whether it is a good practice or not.
Whenever I watch a movie, I tend not to look at the reviews unless I am asked to by my friends. I prefer to go into a movie theater without bias and expect the best. Reviewers do distort our view because if we all came to a movie expecting the best or worst, then that is what we will get. Our perceptions can be shaped however the reviewers want. Likewise, movie promoters do the same with advertisements. It is impossible to view a movie unbiased in our age of digital advertisements and reviewers.
Taking this into account, I would prefer to expect the best and be biased toward that. I’m not a diligent or dedicated movie goer so a disappointing movie doesn’t impact me as much.
I agree with you, I don’t think critics are necessary, let the audience be the judge of a movie. The only rating we really need is age appropriate, otherwise any other form of rating from a small “expert” group of movie goers that hardly represent our population will do more harm than good to the movie industry.
Movie reviews are never something reliable for anyone to look at with respect to the bias that is associated with how every single person perceives what they experience. Our past experiences will shape how anyone sees the world. I like to go into movies with an open mind, but it never ends up that way. I always consider countless different factors regardless how hard I try. With respect to social media and whatnot it is extremely hard to not hear about hype about movies and other instances. This hype often makes the movie not as enjoyable when one actually views it because people often overhype the hell out of movies that often do not deserve it.
I found your blog post to be spot on! I completely agree with what you said and find that reviewers seem to be another species of humans, bent on tearing apart modern works until no one in their right mind would spend the ~$15 to see them. However, for the arts outside cinema productions, I think that reviewers are useful. Their target audience has much more prior knowledge and often the reviews are able to convey accurate and informative information. Even so, I believe that movies are so applicable to the general public that harsh and specific reviews do nothing but discourage movie-goers. As you said, if there are clear problems with a production they should be pointed out, but in many reviews it seems like the reviewer is simply combining an array of technical terms to ruin the image of a movie. A better alternative would be combining user inputted data and having a reviewer interpret this information so there would be less room for bias.
A movie review is a person’s personal analysis and critic of a certain movie — of course there is a bias present. There is no formula or exact mold a movie can fit into in order to be deemed a “factual” good movie. Therefore, because determining whether a film is good, bad, or mediocre, is a matter of opinion, the reviews are inevitably going to contain some, if not all, bias statements. Yes, the reviewer can be a little less critical and knit-picky in their discussion of the movie, however, this is like asking a doctor to be a little less technical in describing a disease. They are professionals, so they act as such.
By no means am I equating a movie reviewer with a doctor, I am just trying to give these reviewers the benefit of the doubt. They do no realize, or choose to ignore the fact that the people reading their articles are less informed, and more sensitive to their charged opinions than would be another professional movie reviewer. Unknowingly, they change the minds of perspective movie goers because of their heated words and harsh analyses. Granted this may be their intent, but you are correct in that they may not realize certain things the say deter people from seeing a movie they may have enjoyed.
To this a say, readers of movie reviews, do not take everything the reviewer says to heart. Feel out their words, and look past the “professional”, overly critical statements. At the end of the day, it is up to you to determine if a movie is good or bad in your opinion.
You have many many good points, such as the author nitpicking at things that one normally might not even notice. It’s probably because the critic is searching for things to criticize and then jumps and exaggerates the situation when he/she finds something he/she isn’t pleased with. I rarely watch movies in theaters so I’m not worried about wasting money on a movie that I won’t like. Even when I do search up reviews of a possible movie, I usually rely more on “normal” people’s opinions than on well-known critics solely because “normal” people’s reviews seem more personal. I generally don’t even go near a review that was made by a well-known critic so I am not affected by his/her bias, thankfully. People should be careful if they do read those reviews, though. People have different opinions and one biased view shouldn’t change their mind over a movie they really want to watch.