Reviewing movies you haven't seen

[Mike Leon]

I got into an argument with someone about this recently. Nep and I used to argue about this all the time back in the day, too.

If you walk out on a movie, or turn it off, or fall asleep, or otherwise don't watch all of it because you hate what little of it you saw, are you still allowed to say it was a bad movie?

Nep usually said no. I can only think of one movie he ever turned off and declared crap, and we used to watch about three movies a week. He watched every single minute of all of them. Then and only then, did he consider himself able to judge them.

I, however, come from a more Hollywood school of thought. I believe that good movies should grab your attention from the beginning. They should make you want to watch them to see what happens. They should be entertaining. That's why we start watching them in the first place, right?

If a movie puts you to sleep, or bores you -it's a bad movie. What do you think?

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I can usually tell three minutes into a movie whether it's going to be quality, or if I can turn over and go to sleep. When I went to go see Saved in theaters (long story, of course females were involved) I knew I could go to sleep about halfway through the commercials, I could smell it coming.

Of course there are some movies, like Birth, that craptacular Nicole Kidman movie, which is soooo horrible that you watch it because it's entertaining. Like Ed Wood's stuff.

[Speedy_NES]

I don't think that any person is capable of saying that a movie is crap when they fell asleep or walked out of it.  They can say that part of the movie was crap, but they can't speak for the entire movie unless they stayed and watched it until the very end.  The thing is that expecations factor into how a movie is judged -- and the directors know this, too.  Therefore, some movies have a slow or boring, and sometimes really crappy start, to get the viewer to drop their expectations...then they pick up and suddenly surprise the viewer, making them give the movies a higher rating at the end, since movie ratings are generally pretty damn subjective anyway.  In other words, movies generally get better as they progress...so walking out of 'm after a short while isn't going to give you enough substance to give them a proper rating. 

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Ballistic: Ecks VS. Sever was a horrible movie and everyone could tell three minutes in.

[Mike Leon]

In other words, movies generally get better as they progress.

The experts disagree. Syd Field and, vicariously, all of Hollywood, says that movies are interesting at the beginning, boring in the middle, and then interesting again at the end.

This is a fun experiment. Time every movie you watch. See what is happening exactly 27 minutes in. $1 says the shit just hit the fan in the storyline.

[nupoile]

I've seen a lot of movies, I mean a lot a lot. Movie watching used to be a hobby of mine however dumb that sounds. I have hundreds of movie theater tickets stubs. I used to have a movie review/news website with a couple other guys. I very rarely watch less then the entire movie I'm watching. I normally tell people, until I've seen a movie three times I haven't really "seen it".

With all that said I think you can have an opinion AND a review of a movie after only seeing part of one. I think people can review some movies just by seeing the trailers. Personally I more or less know what I am going to think about a movie before I see it. Because of that I purposely try to avoid learning anything about a movie before hand and just go into it cold.