Maybe the movie is bad, but…
Posted on April 11, 2008
Filed Under Reviews, Writing
You’ve probably read reviews like this.
I just read ‘Street Kings’ comes up empty, by Craig D. Lindsey, Staff Writer for the Raleigh News & Observer. Here’s how it begins:
Whenever I know there’s a Keanu Reeves movie coming, I can count on it being spectacularly, hysterically, almost hilariously bad. And “Street Kings” certainly does not disappoint.
Okay, why read more? He thinks the movie was bad. In fact, he knew it would be bad before he watched it. One almost wonders why he bothered—first why he bothered actually watching the movie and then why he bothered actually writing a review. He went in prejudiced against the film because it had to be “spectacularly, hysterically, almost hilariously bad”. (And yes, I know he watched and wrote because it’s his job.)
He went in looking for the bad and probably congratulated himself every single time he saw anything that might support his prediction. Ah yes, such a clever fellow—and somehow the fact that he did find the negative made it all worthwhile. Somehow it was a good time at the movies.
It apparently did not occur to him to reassure us that he was quite open to being wrong, and that in fact he would have been wonderfully happy to find that Keanu Reeves brought his character to life as no other actor could have done and that the story both excited and touched him deeply.
Or would a good movie-viewing experience really have been a disappointment for not measuring up (or down) to his preconceptions?
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I think there’s something deliciously satisfying in watching bad movies. And the anticipation of a movie being really bad only adds to the pleasure.
A bona-fide good movie you have to sit through and actually pay attention. A movie you’ve already decided is bad allows you to sit and make ohsoclever comments on its decided badness.
Watching bad movies is, I would venture, an entirely different experience that watching good ones.
So, yeah, maybe a movie you expected to be bad could cross over and surprise you, but I dunno. If I’m expecting a bad movie, I want it to be really really bad. That’s the fun part.