The Right Way To Evaluate Movies

by Terence A. Anthony


If the recent Batman v Superman movie demonstrated anything is the massive divide between fans and critics. Critics tore a new hole for Zach Snyder and thought the movie was trash. Fans on the other hand argued that the movie was not meant for Marvel biased critics because it was too dark (and thinky, whatever that means) for them.

The same was for Warcraft. The movie did horribly when it came to critics but Chinese audiences (who also make up a huge demographic for WOW) were ecstatic. Despite the abysmal reviews, and what people argued were disjointed plotlines directly lifted out of a 2 dimensional storyline from an old video game, fans thought the movie was true to the lore.

The main gripe for critics for both of these movies was that the story was too disjointed. You needed to have prior knowledge to glue things together. To them, there was no point in making Easter eggs so prominent (even in the trailer for goodness sake) if the regular fans don’t get it. Even if they get it, should they be given so much screen time when it does not affect the current storyline? In short, to most critics, it felt like half a story but full of featurettes that does not progress the story.

This then begs the question, how should a piece of entertainment be judged? Should it be judged according to the amount of fan service and how much they respect the lore (well, for Snyder’s case Bat-Punisher isn’t) or should it be based on a coherent story as it is now? For all we know, the stories could play better when things are answered in a sequel, or when a bigger picture is served?

Then again, the question becomes, wouldn’t this just be an excuse for writers who don’t want to wrap things up now? We’re rewarding lazy writing aren’t we? We saw how Terminator: Genisys teased that answers will be given in the sequel when there is no guarantee that a sequel will exist? The painful part is that some plot lines were answered in interviews instead. A part of me sort of suspected that those answers were made up on the spot just to satiate people’s curiosity.

However, in this debate, I have to side with critics, despite me respecting writers giving out fan service. Movies are meant to be an independent medium. It should not rely on anything else because it defeats the purpose of an adaptation or interpretation. While it is for satiating a fan’s desire to see things on the silver screen (super bulked up Batfleck), it should also be a jumping point for people to get into a universe. This meant not being presented with scatter shots and forced to connect the dots with things I read in a comic book years ago.

A film critic’s job isn’t to discuss the lore or to be a cultural theorist, but is to judge the medium as it is. That’s why critics write lengthy essays to justify their opinions. It is to show all these flaws within the medium and explain to people what worked and did not. Trust me, if you were to look at most reviews, staying true to the image of a lore isn’t what most of them complained about. Instead, many were impressed with Batfleck’s menacing Bat-Suit. The dark atmosphere was celebrated as true to the TDKR comics. What they weren’t happy however when Snyder acted as a magpie, cherry picking the good parts of Batman comics and haphazardly gluing them without creating a clear narrative.

So this is where fans shouldn’t take film reviews personally. Diehard fans are defending the culture, the idea and the lore behind it. They are invested in the details because it is part of their lives. So these movies are part of the bigger lore they have invested in. It is dissected with all the prior investment they have made. That baggage does not exist in everyone’s lives. Not everyone has the same connection to it. It’s like taking people to the beach where you brought your first date while expecting others to be nostalgic about it, without them understanding the context.

Film critics want to know what’s in the moment. They want to talk what they saw on the silver screen.  They’re judging it as how it is now, not through your nostalgia glasses. If movies are improved through your rose tinted glasses, then it’s fine. It is your personal experience that no one can take away from. I could not possibly comment on that.

All of this reminded me of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” When it was first release, the movie wasn’t celebrated as it is today. However when broadcasters started playing them every Christmas, people associate it with family, holidays and nostalgia. Everyone started seeing the movie through the lenses of comfort and the warmth of their fire place. It’s became a classic throughout the years and the movie is judged within that context. We have started to judge the movie with a form of cultural baggage. That’s what the fans of BvS and Warcraft are doing.

The critics weren’t wrong when the movie didn’t become their darlings at first. We just now had a different context to what we saw. Maybe BvS will gain a different context. We do not know. But if there are two drastic rating scores in the future, it does not one is right or one is wrong. We probably picked up the cultural baggage along the way.