Analysis of Film Reviews

In this section I have analysed different film reviews to get a grasp on how to write a review for my short film.

Comparasion between Johnny Mad Dog and Twilight
The initial difference between the two reviews that is noticed is the use of adjectives. In The Guardian review the adjectives are less and they are commonly used adjectives such as “lovely”, terrifically” and “youthful”. They also use slang terms to describe for instance “bejeepers”, “manky” and “shag”. However in the Sight and Sound review there are tons of adjectives used and all adjectives used are uncommon such as “nefarious”, “hackneyed” and “voyeuristic”.

Due to the sophisticated word play and the uncommon adjectives seen in the Sight and Sound review it makes it hard to understand in one reading and requires someone of high intellect to understand fully. This is the opposite of The Guardian’s easy-to-pick-up-and-read approach.

A difference between the two reviews is how easy they are to understand. The Guardian you can read through once and get the just of the opinion being expressed. In the Guardian they repeat themselves several times. The point made about Bella being abstinence is repeated several times throughout the review. This makes the review easy to understand as the key points are repeated.

Sight and Sound, is a different story. Sight and Sound doesn’t repeat itself and goes into huge details into all the different factors which make up a film. Sight and Sound discusses the mise-en-scene of the movie, the director’s background, the films background and even the soundtrack.

The Guardian review doesn’t comment on many of those factors but instead it focuses on the characters. It talks about what the three main characters have to go through in the film. The Guardian avoids technical aspects such as mise-en-scene and the only background factors mentioned are the director’s name and actors’ name.

The reasons for the differences in style are due to the differences in audience. The Guardian is focused at the casual mainstream audience. So there differences in vocabulary and ease of reading are necessary. Sight and Sound has a serious film watching audience. Their style of writing reflects the level of sophistication their readers should have.

Nevertheless I feel that it is unfair to compare the two to find out which is better or even to discover The Guardian’s format. Sight and Sound is reviewing a far more serious film than Twilight which The Guardian has to tackle. Sight and Sound had more to write about as their film is of higher calibre. I would love to see Sight and Sound review twilight.

Total Film’s Review of “The Crazies”

This review is done in the magazine Total Film which is a monthly film review magazine.

The layout of the review has the written code of the title of the film in bold and big lettering at the start of the film. Above this is a picture from the film which has a comment writtening in white with a black background. The comment is witty and slightly funny as it states “The ‘cops and pyjamas’ party wasn’t as fun as they’d hoped.” Below the title is the star rating in red. Next to that is a two word comment to summarise the review. Below the rating is when the movie is coming out in a bright green colour. Next to this is the review itself with the first sentence in bold. After the review there is a “In Short” section which summarises the review and gives it’s verdict in one extended sentence. Below that is the technical details of the film such as; certificate (age limit), director, cast, screenplay, distributor and running time. This to this section is a black rectangle aligned to the left of this section.

Moving onto the review itself, the review starts with a quote from Johnny Cash the musician. It also goes into detail about the background of the movie commenting on how this film is a remake. The next paragraph goes into detail about the plot and split the movie into three parts and explains each part in mild detail. The names of the actors and their role are used when introducing the characters. The next paragraph discusses the characters in more detail than the previous paragraph but still not in high depth. There is also a small nod towards how well the set design was. The last paragraph talks about the ending of the film and gives congratulations where it’s needed. It also briefly compares this film to another similar successful remake of a film.

The layout of the film is repeated throughout all issues of the magazine. This particular review got the top half section of one page. Due to this, this film didn’t get that long of a review. However the films below it get even less space and have altered layouts to reflect. The bigger blockbusting films get the bigger spaces of full page spreads and multiple paged reviews with loads of images of the film and interviews. The review itself uses a variary of adjectives to describe certain aspects. It also uses a unusual technique of summarising a character of the doctor and sheriff as doing “doctor – y” and “sheriff – y” things. This is unique, interesting and quirky. The writer also uses quotes to bring about a point twice. Overall this is a small review which doesn’t go into much detail of characters, plot or background and avoids any technical in-depth comments. Instead it gives the reader a brief outline and recommends this film towards the end.