Two Movie Reviews

Sometimes a movie review does its job well.  It informs the reader of the reasons whether or not they will enjoy the movie.  This seems like a simple concept for a critic to deliver, but there is no doubt readers have come across reviews written poorly enough to not deliver the message.  A critic cannot simply say, “this is a good movie” or, “this movie sucks”.   It is the descriptive and informative writing about the subject of the review that stirs up interest or disinterest for the movie in the reader.  A brief example of both a good and bad movie review will support this point.
    An example of a fine movie review is Richard Roeper’s review of the 2009 film “District 9”.  The review is not overwhelmingly long but the moderate length allows him to fully develop the reasons that he enjoyed the movie.  He talks about the pacing of the film, the unique setting, and the quality characters.  Roeper also refrains from spoiling too much of the movie.  He even mentions that he is leaving out a spoiler in such a way that it leaves the reader salivating to know what has been omitted.  He also gives a nice overview of what the story is actually about.  He achieves this by not only including a synopsis but compares it to the work of well known authors to explain the quality and genre of the story.  The review provides a sense of the experience by mentioning the “four-star gross-out moments” and the way political metaphors are present but the audience will not feel “lectured”.
    Roeper’s well written review can be contrasted with a review that is lacking in several areas.  Lisa Schwarzbaum’s review for Entertainment Weekly of the movie “Killers” is a good example.  She completely (and fairly) pans the movie and gives it a D rating.  However, it is not the negative take on the film that causes this to be a poor review.  Most people that see this film would most likely agree with her assessment.  She begins her review by listing several reasons why someone might want to see this movie even though she calls it “crappy”.  She does not state whether or not those reasons are legitimate reasons to ignore the crap that is this film.  She then sets off on a very brief synopsis of the movie.  This is the main area where this review falls short.  She does little else besides just simply stating what the plot is, and then listing a bunch of the subject matter in the jokes that arise as the movie continues.  A more in depth summary of the plot or story as well as some explanation as to whether the jokes work or totally bomb would be appropriate.  The final part of this review makes the reader feel as though she totally copped out and was just trying to fill up space on the page.  It is a paragraph long “dissection” of how terrible Katherine Heigl’s character is in the film.  The result is an overly long list of cliches apparent in the character that could have been reduced to a sentence or two.  By the time the list is through the reader is left with a sense that Lisa was clearly not excited about the movie, and perhaps even less excited about writing a review of it.