like reviews for anything, you find a certain critic whos kinda in tune with your opinions and views and you stick with that one as a rough guide.
Right on.
Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun Times I've always considered to really know his stuff, more or less. The reviews of Prometheus I've seen so far have been vague, messy affairs.
But IMDB is full of trolls and racists and fanboys, you just have to read some of the comments.
I only ever use it for "will i wont i" moments where I cant decide between films, if I want an acurate score of the film Id use critics as they would have seen more films, know how good a film can be, what its lacking, and know that a film has the ability to change your life.
Are avengers and prometheus life changing earth shattering films, the best the world has ever had to offer? I dunno about that.
I also think critics hide spoilers better, but i dont read reviews of films I have not seen, I read reviews of films I have seen.
One thing that I've noticed about IMDB, is that for movies that are high rated, you just get a load of people in the comments section saying "Over-hyped", "How is this rated a X/10?" Then for the genuinly crap films you get people saying, "Not that bad." Or asking,"Why is this rated so low?"
like reviews for anything, you find a certain critic whos kinda in tune with your opinions and views and you stick with that one as a rough guide.
Right on.
Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun Times I've always considered to really know his stuff, more or less. The reviews of Prometheus I've seen so far have been vague, messy affairs.
It's a vague and messy film
*All my spelling and grammar mistakes are on purpose.
Moghal2007 wrote: Don't the critics rate their review based on script, character development etc whereas the audience base it on how much they enjoy the film. That is my take on it anyway
Exactly. To go by the very definition of what a review is, it is a "formal assessment or examination of something" and a lot of people don't seem to realise this. A review should not be about the reviewers personal opinion first and foremost. That may have an impact on it certainly, whether or not the reviewer felt certain aspects of the movie worked well, what he felt of the characterisation and if he felt the pacing worked well with the film are all opinions that may impact upon a review. Things like whether or not the plot is done well however is not solely subjective, it is in large part objective. Features such as Checkov's guns, the setting and the narrative style all contribute to the construction of a good plot. Plot holes, contradictions and inconsistencies all lead to an objectively bad plot. Similarly for characters, giving realistic and believable motivations, consistent actions and an insight into their personality through their portayal are all elements of good characterisation while jarring actions and illogical motivations are not.
Movie critics in general seem to be pretty spot on for me and it isn't simply the case of "Oh, this is a fun movie, I give it a nine", you have to consider the cinematography, the acting, setting, lighting, music, plot, and the characterisation and development and there is a difference between a movie being good and a movie being enjoyable. Perhaps I simply have a too literal take on both of those terms but I stand by it and Roger Ebert pinpointed exactly what I mean in his Aliens review here: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19860718/REVIEWS/607180301/1023:
Roger Ebert wrote: I don't know how else to describe this: The movie made me feel bad. It filled me with feelings of unease and disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside and I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was drained. I'm not sure "Aliens" is what we mean by entertainment. Yet I have to be accurate about this movie: It is a superb example of filmmaking craft.
With regards to Prometheus, I find it funny that you mentioned this since although the reviews are poor overall (in general it they are a comparison to "Alien" and not reviewing it as it's own movie), I find the score fitting. It is certainly an enjoyable movie but there are quite a large amount of flaws.
There are a few plots that are completely unneccessary within the film. Vicker's being Weyland's daughter immediately springs to mind, an almost throw away plotline that had no impact whatsoever on the movie. The exploding heads of the Engineers also was abandoned with nothing in the whole movie suggesting a reason. The Peter Weyland plotline was also an unneccessary inclusion with no significant impact to anything. The resolution of the movie is an incredibly frustrating thing too as without any hints of another ship it turns out that there is many without any previous implication.
Characters are another problem. David is very well developed. His actions are believable and Fassbender is excellent in his portayal. Dr. Shaw too is developed well and Holloway is decent. The problem instead is that there are far too many that are given screen time yet have no development at all. Vickers for example has no impact on the entire plot that could not have been very easily given to another character. The only time she impacts the plot is when she kills Holloway and that could have been to Janek (Elba) to establish earlier that he simply will not allow it to return to Earth and thus make his final decision slightly more believable and also more impactful. Similarly, the time given to the co-pilots was completely unneccessary. Had they been relegated to non-speaking roles (drop that bet storyline) we could spend a small amount of more time with others and focused the story a little more. There is a significant amount of characters that occupy screen time within the movie yet many of them are given no development, detract the focus and simply serve as fodder for the Engineer/mutated creatures while serving no overall purpose. If you reduced the number of characters, relegated a few people to non-speaking roles simply serving as support for the main characters and then developed six characters better and gave them more significant roles (Vickers, David, Shaw, Holloway, Janek and another team member) the movie would appear more focused and tension would be increased as the deaths of side characters (non-speaking roles) would satisfy the audience's bloodlust while the death of a main character would have much more of an impact.
The use of music was something I found absolutely bizarre. The soundtrack was always playing and although it bolstered the sense of scale throughout the first act it detracted from the movie for me. There simply wasn't a build up of tension for me as chatter, "the calm before the storm" is not silent but carries with it a sense of scale. Similarly some of the more "science fiction"-like moments were combined with a much faster paced theme that would be associated with tension when there simply was none. It felt to me as if the movie was uncertain what genre it was, whether or not it wanted to be a science fiction action movie or a tense thriller that happens to be a science fiction.
The film was simply beautiful though. The cinematography superb and there was a magnificent sense of scale but as I've mentioned the movie feels muddled to me, unclear what type of movie it wishes to be and simply not focused, juggling far too many ideas at once.
Now, don't get me wrong, I've stated that I thought the score of roughly 60/100 was fitting. There are many positives to the movie. The above isn't my review, it's simply areas which I think justify the score it is receiving. The film is definitely enjoyable throughout, I still think it was a good movie but I certainly wouldn't call it very good, great, excellent or timeless however and I definitely left with mixed feelings (and disappointment). Although in saying that, I've only finished seeing it literally three hours ago so perhaps given more time and another viewing my opinion will change but as it stand, although the reviews seem to be poor I agree with the actual scores (in general).
I watched this yesterday and I feel the users are to generous and the critics are bit harsh and for me it's closer to a 7/10. For me personally I feel that a movie can either have great action sequences or a great story to be classed as a good film/worthwatching and I felt that the story was okay but so many why's were in it and as for action. There were the enjoyable moments but (in my friends words) 'They spent to much time mincing about'
I heard some people talking about this on the radio, one was an old alien film fan and he thought it was ok, the other just got into aliens and loved 1 and 2 but didnt see the others, she thought it was ok, enjoyable but not as good as the first and second.
So now its settled in a bit, is the 9 on imdb really deserved?
I heard some people talking about this on the radio, one was an old alien film fan and he thought it was ok, the other just got into aliens and loved 1 and 2 but didnt see the others, she thought it was ok, enjoyable but not as good as the first and second.
So now its settled in a bit, is the 9 on imdb really deserved?
No. A short summary of it is: Amazing visuals, bad plot that falls apart upon inspection. Still enjoyable to watch but ultimately disappointing. That seems to be the typical reaction that I've seen and I agree with it.
@Lord Ross, I've only watched his Prometheus review so I cannot make a very informed comment but I must admit I was not impressed by the review for a few reasons. One example is that when he describes the setting of the movie *minor spoilers*
He says it's in the same vicinity as LV426 but that is incorrect/baseless. It takes place on LV223 but there isn't anything to suggest that they are near each other. In fact, the large numerical difference between them would suggest otherwise to me, that they aren't near each other at all but ultimately there is no factual basis to speculate the distance between the two planets.
Another is his constant reassertion that the film is not an Alien prequel. Although tonally yes, it is a different movie there are so many blatantly obvious and almost shameless links to Alien that it would be a lie to say it isn't. There was little reason that this could not have been it's own movie, it could still have been the same movie at its core with some slight alteration and to provide Scott with more creative freedom but for some reason links with Alien were established throughout and it completely interferes with Alien itself upon further examination.
In addition to this I don't like his comments regarding the themes. Although I do agree that David is clearly the character Ridley Scott has the most interest in and he is a very interesting character the theme of "Do machines/androids have a soul?" is not one that is brought up signifigantly and I find it a pretty bad error to state that it is a central one while completely ignoring that David, in the most unsubtle way, is intended to further demonstrate the theme of "Creator and Created" and also the theme of "faith" (which is similarly done so bluntly that it's omission from his review is bewildering).
Similarly he doesn't really comment about the pace of the film and when he mentions it introducing grand ideas he ignores that the film mishandles them to a large extent and contradicts itself in its approach of these ideas and although he says it has clunky dialogue it isn't just the dialogue that is clunky but the entire script. He mentions the character complaints that people have made but has misunderstood them completely, it's not that the characters speak about grand ideas (which they don't ironically unless it revolves around the theme of faith where the movie tries to almost force us to side with faith as the cynics on board are shown as either reckless or rude in an attempt to make us almost scoff at them) but that nobody in the entire film reacts to anything.
I don't want to elaborate too much. I don't want to spoil the movie for those that haven't seen it yet are interested in it, I don't want to continue typing in case you have little interest and finally I don't want to write too much in case people ignore it due to a complaint of it being "Too long so didn't read". In saying that though it could just be because he had such a limited time to talk about it that he couldn't give a very in depth review and it was aimed at a much more general audience but I personally was not very impressed with the review but I have heard a few people saying that they highly respect his reviews in the past so perhaps what I'm looking for in a review is simply different to his style of reviewing.
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