 Movie criticism, huh?
I gave myself a wry smile when I saw this recently. Crawl is a fine film; a solid survival actioner and proud upstanding member of the 99-Minute Movie Club (more about this mysterious organisation in the coming days.) I'll make no claims that it's perfect, but it is claustrophobic, tense, and frightening - a fabulous way to kill an hour and a half. I loved it. So why the yawning gap between their take and mine? Downton Abbey - the receiver of a four star review in the same paper on the same day - is apparently twice as good as Crawl. That's how star systems work, right? Most movie reviews don't tell you how good movies are. Even ones like this are a delicate negotiation that have to pay sufficient homage to... (i) current concensus (aim: have broadly the same opinion as others) (ii) fashion (aim: look current, cool, part of the right gang) (iii) intelligence (aim: appear clever) ...before: (iv) enjoyment. Perhaps the feral gator that is Rotten Tomatoes is eating newspaper film-criticism... or perhaps newspaper film criticism is eating itself.
1 Comment
5/11/2019 10:32:56 pm
These two movies are both amazing, and they have their own charms. If you ask me, we can both make an argument for either one, and still have a perfect answer to which is best. I know that people are going to argue about them a lot, and that is okay. This debate will go for years to come, and that is what makes me want to continue watching it. I hope that we can go and spark more debates in the future. Leave a Reply. |
|
RSS Feed