I’ve recently compiled all of my movie reviews into a single, easy-to-read format over on a new page that you can find here.
In doing so, I discovered just how hard it is to rate movies consistently. I gave D+ to Harry Potter while Into the Blue got an impressive B-. Is that really fair?
The truth is that it is fair, but only because I rated those movies on two different internal scales.
Harry Potter is blockbuster entertainment. I expect entertainment of epic proportions from such a film; and Harry & Co. just didn’t deliver.
But Into the Blue is not on the same playing field as Harry Potter. If this were football, Harry Potter would be the NFL and Into the Blue would be High School. In High School, it’s impressive if they can even kick field goals.
So how do I make this clear to my dear readers? How can I convey to them that Jessica Alba’s B- is not necessarily better than Hermione’s D+?
I’ve been a long time reader of Gamespot for my video game reviewing needs.
They have a neat scale whereby the rater gives the game a rating on several different scales, the last of which is simply ‘Tilt.’
Tilt is a great scale, because it allows the reviewer to simply give the game a rating based on his heart without any logic at all. That can then pull up the overall average of the game; and ultimately get it a better review.
I haven’t committed to it yet, but I’m considering changing the way I rate movies to be more precise so that I can more clearly convey when a movie has a higher rating because of tilt and when it’s rating comes from honest-to-goodness hard work.
What do you think? Would that just confuse the issue? Or would it make life that much easier when choosing movies based on my reviews?
Note: I realize that no one actually chooses movies based on my reviews, but I like to feel important so I thought I’d pre-suppose such anyway.
So if you had tilt, would you have ranked Into the Blue lower, but given it more tilt, or leave it the way it was and given it less tilt?
I would have ranked Into the Blue lower (in line with other movies by comparison), but gave it a higher tilt.
Ideally, Into the Blue would still end up with a B- if the two were averaged, though.
So in the case of Into the Blue, I imagine it’s ‘verdict’ would drop down to a D, while it’s tilt would be an A. The average would still be a B-, but it would be easier to tell how it ranked when compared to other movies I’ve reviewed.
That way if you were ever faced with the decision of whether Into the Blue or Waitress would be a better expenditure of your time, you can hopefully get a better idea. Otherwise, you may rent Into the Blue expecting something as good as X-Men.
I absolutely take your reviews into account when picking my movies. ; )
sml2046
Best I can tell, I’ve seen less than half a dozen of the films you have reviewed. that doesn’t make me like the reviews any less! Change the numerical value of the review all you want, just don’t change the attitude!