How to Review a Film

Posted on September 3rd, 2009 by Marck

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Writers like Pauline Kael, Gene Siskel, and Roger Ebert have made names for themselves in the amazing and fantastic world of movie reviews. Whether you want to do it for fun, as a source of income, or for a school report, reviewing a film requires many critical writing and thinking skills that make a good movie review. Here are tips to help you review a film.

Be Objectively Subjective

We all come to the theater or cinema with certain preconceived notions about genres, actors and actresses, or other aspects about the movie. While you can’t avoid playing favorites with some aspects of a film, you should still focus on the content of the movie and how its presented. Remember that there’s nothing wrong with being subjective with a movie review as long as your criticisms and praises are grounded on things and claims that are substantial. Back up your criticisms with flaws you perceive in the plot, shortcomings in cinematography, or the performance of the actors and actresses in the film.

Get to the First Screening

If you want to make a good review, you have to pick up a habit almost every movie buff and movie reviewer has: get to the first screening of the film. The premiere is where all the movie hype is tested. Reviewing the movie at the first screening accomplishes two things:

It gives you the satisfying opportunity to watch the movie at the first screening.
You don’t have to watch or read reviews that will influence your impression of the movie.

Watch The Film Twice (or Thrice) Over

Very few movie reviewers will write a movie review if they just watched the movie once. A critical, well-written movie review is the result of watching and analyzing the movie as many times as needed so that you can understand it. Remember that the goal of all movie reviews is to help viewers understand the movie; if you just watch it once, you’ll come out with a subjective review that does not adequately capture the filmmaker’s intentions.

Movie reviews are fun, exciting ways to write about a form of entertainment people are passionate about. With these steps, you can write a critical, entertaining film review. For more information regarding this article, read how to determine a bad movie from a good one, beforehand.