My Film Review Criteria

I plan on posting film reviews for some movies I will be watching from now on. I might even go into retrospective mode and review movies I've watched in the past.

But considering my opinion that a simple one-through-four-stars ratings system is largely innefectual when it comes to informing viewers about the quality of films they've yet to see as well as my penchant for being verbose, I have devised this rating system to help me define what I like and what I don't like about a movie in greater clarity than just a matter of simply choosing a number of stars, one-through-four.

Here is how the ratings system will work; between the scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the highest) I will rate each movie on the following criteria:

Legs. How well does this movie hold up under the scrutiny of re-watching? Some movies are one-watch only and some can be watched over and over again with the added pleasures of quoting along with the characters best lines or happily revisiting the emotions you felt when you watched it the first time. Legs also applies to how anachronistic a film feels when watched again years later or how well the themes hold up against time.

Mission. How well did this movie do what I perceive it to be its job? If it is a comedy, did it make me laugh? If it is a horror/thriller, did it horrify and thrill? You get the drift; can it say, 'mission accomplished'?

Agenda. I can't help it, but I have to evaluate the movie based on the moviemakers' underlying message as well as judging it as a stand-alone piece of work. If the message is exceedingly un-American or anti-Christian, I will grade lower. The movie might rate highly in the "mission" category, but low in the "agenda". (Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth 'documentary', for example, might rate high in it's effectiveness or "mission", but low in the "agenda" category on my scale.

Script. The story itself, the actual line characters speak, the cohesiveness of the story and the coherency of the movie all come under scrutiny. Side note: this is one of my favorite aspects of what I consider good films and most heavily weighted categories. A good script trumps bad productions, and bad agendas most of the time.

Acting/Directing. The performances of the actors and actresses as well as the proficiency of the director might be the single most obvious factor to evaluate. Were they convincing? Did I ever get the sense that they are just actors in a sound stage playing a part? If so, the actor and the director have both failed in their duty.

Production. This entails everything from sound mixing to special effects; from film filters and post-processing techniques to costume and makeup; from editin to shot selection and camerawork; from casting to location scouting and an overall sense of "production value".

Overall. This is the obligatory, 'well well did I like the movie overall' category and I usually try to summarize by asking myself whether or not the movie was worth the price of admission or the time it took to sit through it. The "overall" category is not be a mathematical sum or average of the ratings from the other categories, but rather an overall feeling. For example, if every category rates as a perfect "10", except the "agenda" category is so grotesquely counter culture or liberal, I might still rate the movie with an overall "2" or "3" or whatever. That's why I think this rating system is better because you can pick and choose which of the criteria you weigh most heavily.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming movie reviews!