Here at HUG, like many modern movie blogs, we tend not to give numerical ratings. The reason, on my part at least, is because criticizing a work of art that has taken hundreds of people many many months to create is pretentious enough. To then go on to attribute it an arbitrary numerical value seems crass. Now, i appreciate the reasons why a grading is given. Some people don’t want to trawl through lines and lines of text to decipher whether a film is worth watching. A large percentage of casual movie goers just look at the number of stars at the bottom, and go by that. This isn’t necessarily wrong, it offers a tidy summary of the quality of the movie.
The problem, of course, is that a review is an opinion. By merely going by a number on a page, you’re putting your faith in the opinion of someone you don’t know, with no idea if they have similar tastes. New Moon is a good example. Many reviews have marked it down saying it sticks too closely to the source novel, instead of adapting the story more to the needs of a well structured movie. The Twilight fans however have pointed to that as one of the reasons they DO like it. They love the book, and they want a faithful copy of that source.
Watchmen suffered similarly in reviews, with critics suggesting it shouldn’t have been a direct translation. Yes, it would have been more accessible to non-fans if this had been the case, but the people that love the graphic novel would have been outraged. With these two properties, the fans went to see the films anyway, so maybe 2012 is a better example.
I look at a review, it gives 2012 two out of five stars. I decide not to see it. If i’d read the full review, it would have been bemoaning the lack of intelligent storyline and nuanced acting, decrying it’s over the top action and CGI effects. I might like over the top action and effects, but i’ve missed out now.
How about five out of ten rated films? Surrogates is about as average a movie you can get, nothing particularly good but nothing spectacularly bad either. 9 has some great elements, the animation is spectacular and the action beautifully choreographed, but the plot development and storyline are seriously flawed. Both five out ten, but for wildly different reasons. Avatar hits in two weeks. There are two elements to be considered, the usual storyline considerations, and whether the new 3D effects are a huge leap forward. The story could be good, but the tech disappointing. Are we going to give two separate ratings?
I know what you’re thinking. ‘People should read the text as well as the score if they really want a review of the film’. And yes, they should. But too often they don’t, or won’t. You present an easy option, and people get lazy. A bigger problem is that sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic collate ratings and provide an overall average. This results in news stories like ‘New Moon Averages Just 38%’. This colours people’s perceptions of a movie before they even get near a review, so quite often they won’t bother reading one. I accept that yes, if people are happy to go solely by a number that’s their prerogative, and if they really care they should check out the full write up.
My biggest problem with a rating system is that you can never give a movie full marks. The reasons are two-fold. Firstly, full marks suggest perfection. Who has the stones to call any film perfect? Ask yourself, which movies would you give ten out of ten? The Godfather? The Shawshank Redemption? Dark Knight? There are some amazing films, but could we honestly call any of them perfect?
The other reason why you can never give a film top marks is that no matter how brilliant it is, there’s the possibility a superior movie could be released the following week. How can you give a far superior piece the same rating? In a hypothetical situation, imagine The Godfather is released, and you give it ten out of ten. Then, like Che, Part II is released the next month. How do you rate it?
It makes a mockery of the numerical grading system. As journalists, we have a responsibility to tell the full story, not stamp a piece with a potentially misleading one digit summary. At the same time, the reader has their own responsibility to use all available data to make an informed decision. If they don’t, they could be missing out on a movie they’d love.
Bazmann ““ You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann
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Nicely stated. At It's Just Movies (itsjustmovies.com), we don't give ratings to movies for many of the reasons you mentioned. If you take a movie like “Ninja Assassin,” I strongly believe the people who went in expecting to like it did and those that didn't want to see it, hated it it. Chief among those who didn't want to see it were movie critics, so of course they hated it and they had the loudest voices. With a movie like that, what is the point of giving it a number on top of the review? In my review of the movie, I explained who would like it and who wouldn't. So what number does it deserve? In the end, I feel it's better to let the review speak for itself and not get boiled down to ? stars out of five, ?- or thumbs up or down. If you can't figure out whether I liked a movie after your read my review, I didn't do a very good job writing it.
Well stated Barry. When I first started contributing to HUG I was giving the films I reviewed a rating. I did give UP a 10. Shortly there after, I stopped with the numbers and just wrote the reviews.
Surely your point about Watchmen/New Moon works both ways though? Some reviewers will award these films a high score precisely for adapting the source material closely.
Also, your idea of regarding 10/10 films as perfection is interesting as people conceive these in vastly different manners. It's actually a view I share but from my background largely in music blogging/journalism, if one of my peers awards something full marks, I won't automatically assume it's the most perfect album/single/gig ever and concede that everything forever after will be inferior. Instead, I'll take it as a glowing recommendation from a trusted source.
Indeed, you could adapt a scoring system like percentages (out of a 100) or scores (out of 10, to the nearest decimal point). Consequently, the award of 98%/9.8 to a film like The Shawshank Redemption is a sufficient approximation to greatness without ever being perfect. And these points aren't even touching on the idea of absolute vs relative and objective vs subjective.
I also have problems with the idea of assigning numerical ratings, especially when they don't tally with the tone of the review. However, I still think they're useful and I would further explain why but this is turning into a bloody thesis.
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I have to say, I never give movies a star/10 rating as I feel it defeats the purpose of writing the article in the first place.
If you read my thoughts on the film in question, you will see what I liked/disliked about the film, as well as learn about the experience I had with it. Sticking a number on the end just seems vague and pointless.
Plus, how do you 'rate' something like No Country For Old Men alongside Anchorman? Both great movies that you may give a 9/10, but they have nothing in common.
(PS great blog by the way, I give it a four out of five)
I never take notice of star reviews unless they’re an average rating from multiple reviews. I use the average user rating on imdb as a reference point and it rarely fails me.