Tag: critics

Watchmen – Fanboy reviewers need only apply

(c) Fox
(c) Fox

Now that Watchmen has been released everyone has been voicing their opinions with reviewers having a field day both online and off. There has been a key problem with most of the reviews though which hasn’t been raised before. That’s the fanboy factor.

Granted, Watchmen is one of the most popular graphic novels going but the problem with the movie reviews appear to be that the critics are only judging Watchmen by how well it follows the source material. Yet totally ignoring if it’s a good movie. While these kinds of reviews may be acceptable to the US audiences who have read the graphic novel for those in other countries looking at the reviews on the major websites it’s nearly impossible to figure out if it’s a good film or not. Which should be the whole point of a review.

Without question there does appear to be a fanboy factor involved with Watchmen and it’s online presence. While this may be unavoidable, since all reviews came out the same time and don’t provide an answer to the film’s quality as just that a film, to those who haven’t seen the novel it may hurt box-office numbers. This is due to the geek/fanboy appearance that Watchmen has attained since the beginning of the year with nothing but questions on every website about some squid which could be considered a big spoiler.

There is nothing wrong with fanboys or those wishing to be assured that Watchmen has made the cross platform conversion intact, but for those considered the mainstream viewer, who just want to know if it’s a good movie it’s impossible to find out right now which could be scaring away potential audience members and dare I say it, revenue?

Critics hate the Hitman movie. A lot.

Hitman Movie is Rotten

Most gamers have been hailing the famed Hitman movie as being the last saving grace for video game movies. Fans rejoiced when it was confirmed that Hitman is heading straight for an R-rating. It appears that all that has been in vain.

Critics have gotten their miserly hands on the Hitman movie and are not impressed. We have no reason to distrust Rotten Tomatoes, so here’s their score: 13% . Yes folks, time for a loud ‘WTF?!’ That’s right, the critics don’t like it one bit. There are a few positie reviews, but most of it looks bad. We took a quick glance over the reviews, and here’s what they say:

  • It is mindlessly cold and brutally violent (which is good for most of us).
  • Plenty of nudity – yes, sir!
  • Horrible story, direction, screenwriting, action, everything. Then again, when was that ever important in movies?
  • Comparable to James Bond and Bourne movies – in the bad way.
  • I particularly like Stephen Whitty’s statement: “A lousy picture.”
  • The positive reviews appear to be sarcastic, and not entirely hope-inducing.
  • EXCEPT Pete Hammond from Maxim: “It delivers top-notch action, dazzling gunplay and lots of fireworks. What more could we ask for?” Got a point there, Pete.
  • Some statements are hilarious: Apparently the film thinks fans of the videogame will empathize with a guy who has zero practice dealing with women.
  • This is a script written with the sensibility of a geeky 12-year-old boy and then dumbed-down some. More than some.
  • A movie so bland it’s hard to believe it was inspired by anything more than a Wikipedia entry on ‘action thrillers.’

While this makes for some good laughs for us folks not interested in the Hitman games, you can expect a lot of fuming from the Hitman camp. But nyah, those are critics. We, the viewers do want mindless violence, secks, blood and guns.

You might think that’s not bad for a video game movie, but it actually is. Here are Rotten Tomatoes’ scores for some other video game movies:

DOA: Dead or Alive: 34%
Resident Evil: 33%
Resident Evil: Apocalypse: 21%
Resident Evil: Extinction: 22%
Mortal Kombat: 20%
Doom: 19%

Wow. Hitman is worse than Doom? Is that even possible?

[poll=9]