I dont know if anyone else other than my teacher would agree with me regarding the state of movie viewers nowadays. Careful now, this short essay may offend the shallow of mind.
A few weeks ago, I was treated to a free movie ticket to go and watch “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. I would not delve into a full movie review but instead summarize my feelings toward the movie in a single sentence. “It was the most overblown, over hyped and overwhelmingly disappointing film of the year”. Looking past all the glitz and glamour of the special effects, the eye candy actors and the insanely paced action, one would find one dimensional characters, a terribly simplistic story and more holes in the plot than a rifle range target board. It is all style and no substance, like a beautiful body without a soul. After throwing in a lot of sexual jokes and character portrayals that deviate far from the original source material, you then have one of the greatest insults to the well loved “Transformers” franchise. What surprised me was not the fact that I, as a long time Transformers fan, hated the Transformers movie, but it was that so many other people loved it.
Till this day, I do not understand why people love that movie. The fundamental “foundations” that would make a movie “good” was, is and always will be the story narrative, the characters, and the acting. Though “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” utterly failed in those three basic aspects of what makes a movie, so many people still consider this film one of the best to ever get churned out of Hollywood. I cannot understand what made locals so attracted to this movie. I voiced my views against it, and was immediately criticized for what I believed in. Apparently, watching a movie to analyze its story, find its underlying themes and appreciate the performance of the actors are no longer valid reasons to watch a movie. I was lambasted for “reading too much into it” and for being “overly critical”. It is not my fault that people let special effects and explosions cloud their memory to a point that they refuse to acknowledge the flaws of the film. But to equate how good a film is to how much the budget was or how much screen time Megan Fox had completely flies in the face of what movie appreciation is all about.
People like me, who pay up to ten dollars to fully analyze and experience the entirety of what makes a good movie, are apparently a dying breed. The common movie buff nowadays just watches a blockbuster movie for “hot” actors, special effects and action, like a bunch of monkeys staring in awe at a burning tree and going “wow”. Hardly anybody seems interested in the “soul” of a movie anymore, only the superficial aspects of its body. Story, characters and themes have now given way to pomp, spectacle and shallow excuses for a narrative in what makes a good viewing experience and a well spent ten dollars. What irks me most is that movies like Transformers are such a success at the box office that other movie producers may choose to make more of such “big but brainless” movies. Could that be a sign that local movie watchers’ tastes are becoming more superficial with each passing day?
No longer are conversations among movie buffs peppered with critical analysis and insights into the spirit of a film. Instead, all that matters nowadays is how “cool” the film was. Thankfully, many movie watchers of other countries still adhere to their beliefs about what distinguishes a good movie from a total waste of money. But locally, with critical analysis of movies being frowned upon even in conversations among friends, the future of the casual movie critic is dark one.
