Who are movie reviews for?

Have they heard of Spoiler Alert! or is it just a way to stroke the reviewers ego?

I was looking forward to watching a show. The trailer seemed good; the cast was familiar and, more importantly, it was available on the streaming service for which I had a subscription. Then I made the mistake of reading a review for the same.

The review by a famous New York Times critic started off well by giving just a hint of what the show was about and retelling the past glory of some of its cast. Thereafter, it went into the nitty-gritty details of what was wrong or could have been improved. Looks like in medical school doctors are taught to ask if they should give us the good news first or the bad news first. But in the reviewers’ collective, there is a rigid rule, the good news first followed by the bad news. If there is no bad news, make some up fast; or else how will people know that you have seen the movie and could have made a better one if given the chance.

The basic question a review boils down to is, who is the audience for it? Who is it most useful for? Is it the person who just found out about the show and wants to know a bit more of what it’s about? Or is it for the movie buffs, the film critics who have watched the movie, have the blu-ray and are looking for every piece of information or trivia they can find about it? Or is the review a kind of portfolio presentation for the future employers of the reviewer? The maximum clicks for the review would be from the first category, but it usually panders to the last two.

I’m not looking for the entire plot to be in the review and definitely not for your gotcha moment when you uncover that one insignificant plot loophole. What I am looking for in a review is just some minor plot details and how it compares to the other shows in its genre. Also, if some actor has a breakthrough performance or a crappy one? How is the pacing, is it binge-worthy? Is it an edge of the seat thriller or a laid back flick I can watch at leisure? How is the cinematic style, the background score? Or is there an end credit scene or a bloopers reel? But all we get is plot details and some ideas from the reviewer of what the movie could have been if the directors had followed his suggestions.

Film critics are an endangered species and are soon to become extinct if they don’t adapt to the times. In the age of getting recommendations from the algorithms of the streaming services and a quick look at IMDB ratings, very few people decide to read a proper review before deciding to watch a movie. If the review panders to the few, it would risk alienating the many. For who would read a review ever again if he saw it mention that Ned Stark died in the first season of Game of Thrones.

But at the end, that is the folly of writing about stuff. You end up giving your opinions on it. In trying to criticize a review, I have done the thing that I hated the most about it. I ended up reviewing the review and told you the key points from it with a dash of my own bias, thus preventing you from enjoying it in its truly unadulterated form.