A website of ramblings from some eighteen year old who has been told he's a good writer but thinks otherwise.
A movie review without even seeing the movie.
Published on May 14, 2004 By brackenfish In Entertainment
I may have mentioned this a few times before, but I’ll say it again anyway. I work at a movie rental store. Now, I know this position doesn’t entitle me as an expert in film criticism, but it damn well should. I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of movies, people! I’m around movies all the time! I even steal some of the movie signs we have hanging around out store just to throw it in my closet when I get home! So, believe me when I say that the new movie Troy will probably suck.

Now before all you people who actually went and saw the movie get all uppity, allow me to state that I have not, in fact, seen the movie. I’ve seen a few trailers here and there, and I’ve learned about the Trojan War, so technically, I KNOW the movie. But I still HAVEN’T SEEN it. With that being said, allow me to explain the reasoning behind my prediction.

1. Troy will suck because it’s a Warner Brothers film. I’ve been paying attention to the latest releases on video, and all of the ones that have been Warner Brothers are god-awful; Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Loony Toons: Back in Action, Torque (not out yet, but they couldn’t even make the previews interesting). See what I mean? In fact, thinking back, I can’t recall a Warner Brothers movie that I liked except for the first Matrix, and Troy won’t be the next Matrix. The reason the first Matrix was so good was because it had the new idea of living in a digital world. That and awesome guns. And Troy doesn’t have any of those, unless it’s chock full of historical inaccuracies.

2. Troy will suck because of the typical way Hollywood characterizes the protagonist and the antagonist. In the case of Troy, I believe it may be exaggerated even more because of Brad Pitt being the protagonist and some other dude I’ve never heard of as the antagonist. Who wants to see Brad Pitt do something evil? No one. Who wants to see Brad Pitt beat up on some evil actor who no one’s ever heard of? Everyone except me. Also, the whole protagonist/antagonist thing shouldn’t apply to the Trojan War in my mind. Even though the story was told from the prospective of the Greeks as the protagonists as they destroyed the evil antagonist Trojans, there was no clear good guys and bad guys in that war. A boy from Troy steals a woman from Greece, and the Greeks overreact and destroy the whole town. If anything, the Greeks should be the bad guys, not the other way around like the movie will probably be.

3. Troy will suck because it is a movie based on a historical event and it doesn’t star Russell Crowe. Come on, Warner Brothers, we all know by now that if you are making a historical movie, you have to have Russell Crowe in it! That crazy Australian drunkard was awesome in Gladiator and Master and Commander, and he would have been awesome in Troy. But no, you have to go and get Brad “the mexican” Pitt instead. Actually, I’m just kidding about the Russell Crowe thing. I don’t think Brad Pitt will disappoint. I just needed a third reason because three reasons sound a hell of a lot better than two. But still, Russell Crowe is awesome.

Well, there you have it. Feel free to comment with some reasons why Troy will suck that I may not have thought of. Or, go ahead and refute my arguments. Just, if you do, please do it in an intelligent manner that actually makes sense. I don’t want to see thousands of comments tomorrow all saying that Troy will be awesome because “Brad Pitt is so hot and dreamy and that’s all that matters. And by the way, Love Don’t Cost A Thing was awesome too because Nick Cannon is so hot and dreamy, etc.” And, of course, anyone who wasted ten bucks to see Troy tonight, feel free to validate my arguments

Comments (Page 2)
2 Pages1 2 
on May 24, 2004

However, as I said in my article, I have seen a great deal of movies. Many of those movies I thought would be bad before I even saw them, but I figured that I shouldn't judge something before I saw it. So, I saw it, and it sucked. After a while, I began predicting whether future movies will suck or be awesome. It's turned into a my own personal form of gambling with my ego and the validity of the $10 for the movie ticket at stake.


Didn't I read in another one of your articles that you're taking psych classes of some kind?  haven't you covered "self-fulfilling prophecy" yet?  If you walk in the door with pre-conceived notions about something, whether we're talking about a concert, a date, or a movie, guess what's VERY likely to take place?


Of course your prediction is going to come true, the overwhelming majority of the time... I like to keep an open mind about stuff... give everything a fair shake, and then decide if I like it or not.  Does that always happen?  nah... but I think it's important to try

on May 24, 2004
imajinit

Yes, I've learned about self-fulfilling prophecy, and I see how it could apply to my judgement of movies. However, I don't buy into that theory. While I have many times predicted a movie would suck and it did suck, there have also been times where I was surprised by what I saw. Granted, I'm not surprised by a good movie the majority of the time, but it DOES happen.

But still, the reason I prejudge some movies is because I know the indicators of a bad movie. If I don't see those red flags come up when reading about an upcoming movie, then I don't think anything of it. But, if I see little things that I know won't help a movie like familiar plotlines or Vin Diesel, then it's easy to tell the movie will suck. It's the red flags that no movie can recover from that I typically base my prejudgements on.
on May 26, 2004
I've seen the movie, it sucks. 2 hours of total crap. The action-scenes were ridiculous and the plot is already known. What else is there?
2 Pages1 2