What does a good review include?

As of late I'm finding that i spend a goodly amount of time in the review section of the site. As such, I've read a ton of reviews and without naming names, I now know which ones I think include the best material.

When I read a review I'm looking for the things that I can't find at IMDB. Cast, characters, etc are all good but they provide no depth. What I want to know is how a particular film effected the reviewer and why it did so. What nugget of truth did the reviewer find when analyzing his/her experience? How does the film relate to that reviewers' life experience? What can be learned from the film? Why is it funny, scary, stupid etc?

What do you look for in a review?

here is the form I usually use for a review

tagline
Picture
Plot
Star's acting (any # of short paragraphs)
something that stood out, (writing, effects etc.)
Rating


so I only care about the acting


but it does vary by genre, I mean if it is Sci-fi I usually look for comments about the special effects, for comedy I look at if they say it is funny or not, if it is adventure I look at the plot, and same for Drama

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

I like to know what the film was about, but I particularly want to know why it was good/bad. Reviews which just say 'it was dumb/pointless/boring' or 'it was great/brilliant' tell me nothing. I like to know if the use of colour was particularly inspiring, if there was something exceptional about the directorial style, or whether you could empathise with the characters. I like a balanced review which tells you the good and bad points of a film. I like a review which is well written, which doesn't feel as if it is written to a fill in the blanks formula, even while it covers all the aspects you would expect a review to cover.

I like unfavourable reviews which are funny, the art of witty put downs is one I would like to master myself but have not as yet. Reviews which put a film in context - by reference to the director's other works/ the original story if it is an adaptation etc. can be very informative but it is not essential.

A really good review will inspire me to seek out the film (if it is favourable).

I'm with Toose; I don't usually bother reading reviews that are largely made up of a description of the plot. That's the stuff we usually already know, or could find for ourselves easily. Some of the reviews are really just a synopsis and a rating.

I also usually skip the particularly short reviews, or the ones made up of offhand comments. The entire point of a review, to my mind, is to elaborate on your feelings about a movie. There's not much point in writing a review if you're not going to delve into why you felt the way you did about it.

How the film looks overall , it's different types of emotions , and any extra notes like a certain actor was amazing or the movie was incredibly cheesey.

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Yeah well said Toose, If I wanted the cast I just Google it. I'm finding a ton a of very interesting takes on this site and some of them frankly fantastic. I even end up looking some of the words they use up on Dictionary.com (not that this is a bad thing), but I'm a work in progress and I don't need to know everything by next Tuesday. Sad as it may seem I sometimes get more from reviews of movies that folks don't like than from ones they do. Especially any and all Sci-Fi or Horror type films. So keep it up, Watch them bad movies so I can too!

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

There's one thing that I really like in Vladimir Nabokov's advice to literary critics that also applies to the film reviews I like to read:

"By all means place the 'how' above the 'what' but do not let it be confused with the 'so what.'"

I had a long, perhaps mostly off-topic, post, and then it got etherized, so I think I'll regroup and keep it short and (hopefully) sweet.

Most films are an original entity, so I believe they all deserve an original kind of review. No one size fits all or checklists should be included. If you're going to write up a brief plot synopsis, it should include personalized feelings about the characters and their actions. Otherwise, I'm generally more interested in what the movie is about, as in why was it made and what can someone take away from it? If it was made as a pure popcorn flick, that's fine. Did it succeed? Similarly, it can be trying to be very deep and artistic, but how does the viewer feel about it? If you can't connect with it or feel that it's too pretentious, go ahead and tell me.

When I write a review, I need some hook to get started. It's got to be something unique about the film that I react to and can somehow share that feeling with others to hook them in. It's sort of like what movies want the viewer to do. It's impossible for me not to look at it through my personal life experiences, but I still try to remain objective when evaluating it. I don't try to base my opinions on it due to its genre, subject matter, politics, cast, crew, budget, date or country of release, etc. I just try to let the film present itself to me, and then I try to reflect what I get from it back to others. Hopefully, sometimes it can be a witty, artful review, but I'm pretty sure that it's always honest and well-considered.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

A bit about the story, not too much reveal of the plot but most of all I like to read how a film affects the reviewer personally. I want them to write about it like they were telling me face to face down the boozer. I want enthusiasm or sarcasm, love or hate, respect or rejection but make it from the heart not just the head.

Nice little snippets of info that you know about the film or the director or the actors, something you might've picked up from being interested and doing more reading or whatever , things that as someone who maybe hasn't seen the film doesn't know about.

Pretty much what everyone has said here. I already know everything I need to know "about" the movie, when I read a review I want to know how it affected the viewer.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

You got me wondering, as I've been toying with the idea of doing some reviews here (I've experimented with some on a personal website in the past).

Is there a post somewhere wherein some review guidelines are drawn out for this site? I tried searching, but I couldn't find anything (maybe I didn't search with the right words).

In addition to what everyone else is saying, is there a length limit whereby a review is TOO long, for instance?

I admit that I am pretty horrible at reviewing a film. I try to make up for it by usually giving too much personal info. I gave up trying to review in the standard way. However I do know what I like when I read a review: Originality and honesty. Format certainly plays a part, but it seems sometimes that the less I know about the film and the more I know why "you" like/hate it then the more likely I am to watch/not watch it.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Unfortunately, no, there aren't really any guidelines. Mainly because they aren't really "rules" anyway, but just specifications for which reviews are included among the User Reviews, for example, or which review threads qualify for the "Member Reviews" block at the top of the Movie Reviews forum.

That said, I really ought to write some up. I'm hoping to overhaul the entire Help section at some point, at which time I'll be sure to write up some guidelines.

Also, I'm sure some reviews could be too long, but as far as problems go, I'd say it's a pretty good one to have!

I want a well-articulated glimpse of that movie through someone else's eyes. What made them glad they saw it? What made them want their money back?

There are some good answers to the same question in this thread, btw.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

My reviews suck too, but I simply roll with the punches and write cause they are fun.

Writing the whole thing in the style of Marty DiBergi? That one went down like the proverbial lead balloon...

Apart from that I want some kind of evidence which points towards freedom of thought. And lame gags.

We need a degree of light-heartedness and less smart-arsedness.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Of course, I agree with most that have been said in this thread - a review consisting simply of the movie's plot followed by a sentence or two describing its qualities or the lack thereof, should not be considered a review at all.

However, it's not always the critic's fault that they didn't write a particularly interesting review, because they can often only be as original and as interesting as the movie itself. It's not always difficult to write a good review of a good movie, and often, many interesting things can be said about exceptionally bad movies, but there is also that category of movies that don't deserve much of an analysis, and reviewing those is quite a task. Mediocre movies, those that don't have many distinguishable qualities, which are not much different from dozens of movies coming out every year, are often very hard to review because the reviewer risks being as generic and boring as the picture itself. That's why I don't necessarily blame a film magazine critic if their review of Live Free or Die Hard wasn't groundbreaking.

As a wise man with fragile bones once said: "We live in a mediocre age. People no longer believe that there can be something extraordinary in themselves, or in other people."

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