For the most part, movie reviews can be found on different websites (Rotten Tomatoes) or newspapers (The New York Times) written by well known critics or bloggers for people that aren't sure whether a movie is worth watching or spending money on. Movie reviews can be brief, contain some sort of summary of the movie, and positive or negative adjectives depending on the opinion of the writer. Typically, and I say typically because we are talking about conventions here, movie reviews are brief because if they would include too much of the plot then the reader would know too much about the movie and not bother watching it. Brief reviews include a couple of sentences summarizing the film then ending their review by truly recommending or discouraging readers to watch the movie. This blogger on Rotten Tomatoes summarizes some of the film while using positive adjectives to demonstrate his enjoyment of the movie and ending by telling the readers to go see it.
In some reviews, the title will reveal whether the critic approves of the movie or doesn't.
Using the title to quickly reveal whether the review will be positive or negative is the fastest way for a reader to decided if the review is worth reading. When I read reviews, I like reading one positive review of a movie then one negative review, and some reviews are slightly too long for me to bother with especially when they aren't firm on their opinion of the movie.
Longer movie reviews will start off with a couple of paragraphs mentioning the star of the film or the director and some of their history in Hollywood, then go onto a detailed summary of the movie that uses specific quotes, all the while using adjectives that will hint at their opinion of the film. Jeff Labreque from Entertainment Weekly starts of his review by mentioning some of the protagonist's earlier films, "Why are people always risking their lives for Matt Damon? Okay, perhaps always is a bit much, but in Saving Private Ryan, a unit of brave G.I.s who barely survived the storming of Normandy in 1944 had to sacrifice their lives to rescue one average man whose brothers had been killed." By starting off his review with that broad question, a reader begins to be curious about whether the writer liked or disliked the movie therefore, must continue to finish reading the review until it is clear. ScreenRant writer Ben Kendrick waits until the last paragraph of his review to be very specific of his opinion of The Martian, "Regardless, Scott has produced an entertaining rescue-thriller film, that takes cue from classic man vs. nature stories to tell a unique tale of one person's day to day survival millions of miles away as an entire planet rallies to bring him home... it's hard to dismiss the stirring story of humanity and triumph that Scott has delivered."
Regardless of short or long, movie reviews are a great way to be introduced to new movie genres that you aren't familiar with yet you might still enjoy very much.
ReplyDeleteGood job! I think this is a really good summary of the conventions that go into movie reviews. I too, like reading movie reviews, especially before I go see it. I read them because I don’t want to see a bad movie and waste my money. I also really like the pictures you posted, so now I don’t have to go looking up the review on the martian. I also agree with you on the point that movie reviews should stay short, clear, and concise. No one wants to do a lot of reading, especially if it is going to be a bad movie.