Is it just me, or does there seem to be a complete lack of reviews saying good things about this film?

IGN/FilmForce's review was put up on February 12th, and still isn't on the site. They gave it 5/5 stars.

Then there's the review that was on MSN.com by John Hartl, and he gave it 4/5.

It isn't that the movie is absolutely horrible (quite the contrary, in my opinion), moreso just that there is a very limited range of reviews on this site.

If you even go and look at sites, there are so many different places that have good reviews of it, yet virtually none are listed here.

Naturally, there are going to be varied views, and that's fine. I don't have problems with that, but it seems that those that are up are rather one-sided.

Last but not least, I think the whole "My-interpretation-of-what-the-critic-meant" thing is pretty lame. There could be a review where the person rants and raves about the awesomeness of the film, but because of my views, I "interpret" the review as a 20/100, when they clearly meant within the range of 80+.

Of course, it could go either way. But still.

How can some of these Academy Award Winning films really only have an average Meta-critic score of 48 or thereabouts?

(EDIT: I have more examples of positive reviews.)

(Maxim: 4.5/5) (iF Magazine: A) (7M Pictures: 4/5) (FilmFour.com: 4/5) (FirstShowing.net: 9/10 (E! Online: A-) (filmcritic.com: 4/5) (About.com: A)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ReinventedExit,

Note: I also realize that the site only accepts reviews from certain sites, but I find the blatantly limited amount of sources to be rather misleading to the public.

In addition, I just did the math myself, and the average would be 57.9, not 53 as it says.

(The total points were 1855, and then divide that by 32.)

If I were to add scores from the sites I listed, changed into the appropriate format, the new average would be 64, just with those 8 added.

I find critics & regular movie going patrons are particularly harsh on movies based off of comics. I'm not sure why this is. Oliver Stone movies make NO SENSE to me, no matter what the subject. The way he shoots a film annoys me, I will never pay to see anything with his name attached as director. No, scratch that, I WILL NEVER SEE AN OLIVER STONE MOVIE! Free or not. Yet, he is an acclaimed director!

I'm always confused by what critics like & what they don't. There are some movies they hate just for flaws that only they can know or because they don't understand where the director is coming from. Roger Ebert gave "The Usual Suspects" a low score because he was confused by all of the time skips. This seems odd to me because I understood where & when we were the entire film & I'm not that smart!

I just think Comic-Based films don't get respect because they are based on comics. Ebert once expressed his contempt for Comic-Based Movies by saying comics should be inspired by movies, not the other way around. I'm sure there are others who believe this as well!

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In addition, I just did the math myself, and the average would be 57.9, not 53 as it says.

Although your thoroughness is appreciated, you missed the fact that some publications are given more 'weight' than others, which would result in the anomoly.

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If I were to add scores from the sites I listed, changed into the appropriate format, the new average would be 64, just with those 8 added.

I can't speak for Metacritic, but from what I understand they only use the selected reviewers in order to ensure that all of the provided reviews are of high quality with regards to writing.

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
I find critics & regular movie going patrons are particularly harsh on movies based off of comics. I'm not sure why this is. Oliver Stone movies make NO SENSE to me, no matter what the subject. The way he shoots a film annoys me, I will never pay to see anything with his name attached as director. No, scratch that, I WILL NEVER SEE AN OLIVER STONE MOVIE! Free or not. Yet, he is an acclaimed director!

I'm always confused by what critics like & what they don't. There are some movies they hate just for flaws that only they can know or because they don't understand where the director is coming from. Roger Ebert gave "The Usual Suspects" a low score because he was confused by all of the time skips. This seems odd to me because I understood where & when we were the entire film & I'm not that smart!

I just think Comic-Based films don't get respect because they are based on comics. Ebert once expressed his contempt for Comic-Based Movies by saying comics should be inspired by movies, not the other way around. I'm sure there are others who believe this as well!

Well why am I not surprised you don't like Oliver Stone? Hmmm, but Ghost Ride and 300 must of been incredible. Seriously, an epic film in which a proud, strong, but highly outnumbered force fight to the last man. Who's ever seen anything like that before?! And a Metacritic of 53 is unusually high for a film of this type. Usually they score in the 30's or 20's.

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Originally posted by brighteyes215:
Well why am I not surprised you don't like Oliver Stone?

Hey, I've been interested in quite a few of his movies, but the way he shoots his pictures is just strange to me. I thought maybe what he did with "Natural Born Killers" was something he was only going to do with that movie since the subject matter was so "out there", but when I rented "U-Turn" & he did the same black & white switches & bizarre close-ups on people's mouths & then he did the same thing in "Any Given Sunday" & then several others, I was through with him. I don't like the way he shoots his movies, I find it annoying.

What's with you messing with me on "Ghost Rider" & what not? I don't come at you like a pompous @ss about what you like. I say my peace & leave it at that. You just can't seem to let something go. I liked it, you didn't. Fine. There are some movies I don't expect much from, except a little action. "Ghost Rider" & "300" gave me what I expected, therefore I wasn't disappointed. It's not like I went expecting an amazing, out of this world experience. Concerning the movies Mr. Stone directs, I was expecting more.

Out of the 730 DVD's I own, only around 30 are Comic Related. I do own Oscar winners & Indie films. I like Drama & Thrillers. I only go to the theater for war & explosions because you just can't get that same effect in a home theater.

I enjoyed 300 very much. No, the characters weren't incredibly deep (which is mostly what I heard from people who didn't like it) but this was a great story about the sacrifice of 300 men against truly unstoppable numbers, just so their families and future generations can live in peace and without slavery. I think it was an incredibly beautiful film with amazing action sequences, and thats what it was meant to be I think.

I would give it a 8.5/10

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:

quote:

Originally posted by brighteyes215:
Well why am I not surprised you don't like Oliver Stone?

Hey, I've been interested in quite a few of his movies, but the way he shoots his pictures is just strange to me. I thought maybe what he did with "Natural Born Killers" was something he was only going to do with that movie since the subject matter was so "out there", but when I rented "U-Turn" & he did the same black & white switches & bizarre close-ups on people's mouths & then he did the same thing in "Any Given Sunday" & then several others, I was through with him. I don't like the way he shoots his movies, I find it annoying.

What's with you messing with me on "Ghost Rider" & what not? I don't come at you like a pompous @ss about what you like. I say my peace & leave it at that. You just can't seem to let something go. I liked it, you didn't. Fine. There are some movies I don't expect much from, except a little action. "Ghost Rider" & "300" gave me what I expected, therefore I wasn't disappointed. It's not like I went expecting an amazing, out of this world experience. Concerning the movies Mr. Stone directs, I was expecting more.

Out of the 730 DVD's I own, only around 30 are Comic Related. I do own Oscar winners & Indie films. I like Drama & Thrillers. I only go to the theater for war & explosions because you just can't get that same effect in a home theater.

Your method of rating a film is bizarre.

I went to go see Ghost Rider the other night. I was expecting it to be shitty; it turned out to be shitty. Therefore, the movie met my expectations and I recommended it to all my friends.

What?

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Originally posted by Fitz:
Your method of rating a film is bizarre.

I went to go see Ghost Rider the other night. I was expecting it to be shitty; it turned out to be shitty. Therefore, the movie met my expectations and I recommended it to all my friends.

What?

Your thought process is bizarre. By your example I would recommend Oliver Stone films, I don't. If I expect a movie to be sh*tty, I ain't gonna see it. Period. My example was concerning the fact that I go to movies with certain expectations. I have different levels of expectations concerning different movies. When I go to movies like "Ghost Rider", I'm looking for things from the comics. If they're in there & they have the action I'm looking for, I'm fine with it. As for other movies that I was unhappy with, I expected more than I got. I'm very unhappy with alot of comic adaptions, but I've learned that I can't expect them to match the page. So, I've lowered my expectations to look for MOMENTS from the comics. These are the ONLY movies that I go easy on, mainly because I LOVE that my favorite heroes are coming to the big screen. However, in the case of '300', this movie just ROCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!