Keeping Score

Review for the Reviewers

I just got back from Underworld, and I've got something I'd like to ask the reviewers out there:

Just at what point did going to see a movie lose the magic for you? I'd like to know what event in your life made you mentally and physically unable to sit in a theater for two hours and just attempt to have a good time, without being completely blown away by the film. Did a girlfriend slap you when you tried to make a move for her panties in the back row during Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Maybe your friends laughed at you when you cried at the end of E.T. Or maybe you've had eighteen hundred too many scripts rejected by Hollywood to ever regain any sort of love for the theater-going experience. I feel sorry for your kind.

Let me explain. I was a kid once. I know it's hard to believe, but hey, we've all been there. Some of us just seem to remember more of it than others. I remember seeing that big triangle ship float through space shooting at the smaller, more tubular ship, and thought to myself "this has to be one of the greatest experiences of all time." I didn't just mean Star Wars. I meant just getting to go out and see a fun, exciting movie; allowing oneself to get caught up in a great chase scene or feel like you're right there in the heat of a fight. Sometimes seeing a movie is wonderful just because it lets you forget who you are for a couple of hours and live someone else's more exciting life.

At what point did reviewing a movie become a hate-it-or-love-it experience? Where's the levity? Where's the gray area? Did you folks see the same previews I did? I went to go see a movie where vampires shoot at werewolves with guns. Black leather and goth ensue. This isn't rocket science, people. It's a fucking action movie with more style than any of you will ever have in your entire collective lives. Sure, it's thin on plot, and the acting gets a lot bit weak at times. But guys? Action movie. It's certainly not epic. This isn't Shindler's List starring Lestat with American Werewolf in London. If you were expecting more than The Vampire Matrix meets Romeo + Juliet, well, you got what you deserved.

And don't bitch about paying nine bucks to see it, either, because you didn't. You're a reviewer. You're not entitled. Folks, I've got news for you. I've seen much, much worse for a hundred and eighty bucks, and it was called Rent. This is not haute divertissement. It's nickel theater. This is meant to get you out of the house for a couple of hours and tell you a story. It might be a deep story. It might be sad. It might even be epic. But it may just be fun.

Imagine. Letting your hair down. Enjoying yourself at a movie.

Stranger things have happened.