Are Critics Nuts? They drive me nuts, anyway. For example -
All the reviews I’ve read of “Revenge of the Sith” say the dialogue is clunky, acting is wooden, and direction is clumsy. Yet it gets at 93 or so on Rotten Tomatoes?? What gives?
Also, I read a couple of reviews lately for the movie “Crash” which critiques the film because it won’t change race relations in America . Seems to me that’s asking a lot of a movie. Again, what gives?
Anyone else have some current comments on how movie criticism is going these days?
And yes, I realize I don’t have cites handy for my observations above. Sorry
Seems to me that the critics are doing exactly what they’re supposed to. I’m sure that RofS will have all those flaws, but the critics also recognize that’s not the attraction or value of the movie as a whole. By pointing out the problems yet giving the movie a positive overall review, they’re comparing the movie to its own aspirations, not to some arbitrary set of critical absolutes.
Roger Ebert always answers criticisms about giving out the same number of stars to horror films as to major serious dramas by reminding people that he is comparing like to like, horror films to other horror films, dramas to dramas, and not one to the other - except for best of the year time.
I haven’t seen any reviews of Crash that condemn it for not changing race relations in America. Maybe there are and maybe that criticism is as weak as it sounds, but I’d have to read it in context.
It’s obviously true that some critics are better than others, just as some movies are better than others. Of course, you can’t compare all critics to one another either. Some critics are just there to tell you if the movie is worth your popcorn money and others seriously attempt to critique a movie in terms of its art. Their aspirations are as different as those of the directors of the horror films and the dramas.
Unless you have specific bad examples to point to, I’m afraid I don’t think you have much of a general case.
I think most reviewers review movies based on what the movie aspires to be. So dialogue that would be unacceptably bad in an Oscar contending weeper about the death of an adorable moppet from some dread disease and the subsequent reawakening of her mother to the ways of world is perfectly fine in a teenage starlet platform about how Hollywood thinks geeky girls look better without their glasses.
So, something like Crash, which really seems to want to be big and important and world changing gets compared against the standards of ‘Will it change the world?’ and when the answer is ‘No’, it just looks self-important.
Revenge of the Sith, on the other hand, doesn’t claim to be about much other than driving the plot forward, and special effects, and selling popcorn in appropriately branded collectable tubs, so that’s the standard it gets compared against - ‘Is it fun? Does it sorta make sense in the context of the other 5 movies?’