Why Nit-Pickers Are Ruining My Childhood

It will come as a surprise to no one that’s known me for more than five minutes that I love movies. I watch them repeatedly, it bothers me when people get movie quotes wrong (particularly when I do it myself), I practically foam at the mouth at the prospect of a midnight premier and I even love the trailers for upcoming films as much as the feature presentation sometimes. What most people don’t really guess about me is the magic that encapsulates movies for me. Growing up semi-poor I didn’t get to go to the movies very often, so it was a special treat. I vaguely remember seeing The Jungle Book and Return of the Jedi when I was 5 and 6 respectively, but the first movie I vividly remember seeing was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 4th grade, age 9. I was hooked. To this day, whenever I sit down in a theater and the lights drop, and the screen lights up and the music rises, I get a chill and there I am, 9 years old again, about to get taken away to another world.

Some time ago I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Having been the only person in my circle of friends who didn’t revile the previous installation, I was rooting for this one to blow everybody away. In my humble opinion it didn’t disappoint. The action scenes were amazing, particularly in the last 60 minutes. The ongoing love story between Will and Elizabeth is bittersweet yet peppered with humor, and you really get a sense of how far each will go for the other (even as they are in a tiff at the start of movie regarding Elizabeth’s little tryst with Jack). The scenes in the mystical and titular ‘World’s End’ were delightfully bizarre and at times hauntingly beautiful. And of course Johnny Depp scores again as Jack Sparrow.

I came home and looked up the reviews as I am wont do for movies, fully expecting raving reviews and thunderous accolades. Yet every review I read couldn’t stop going on about how much the movie sucked. I boggled and wondered aloud: “Were we watching the same movie?”

Honestly I didn’t get it. Any more than I understood the bile-rising hatred of Dead Man’s Chest. Finally I think I figured out what’s bothering me. I honestly think film critic’s well-practiced and self-aggrandizing cynicism is affecting the general public. Nobody goes to a movie to watch a movie anymore, just to pick it apart. Suspension of disbelief is a crucial component to enjoying a film, and really it’s getting harder and harder to create an image that our minds will latch onto and accept. this problem has gotten worse with film critics gleefully pointing out every. single. flaw. You can’t be cynical and still let yourself fall into a story. it just doesn’t work. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes a movie just stinks to high heavens, and deserves to be ripped apart. The thing is, a lot of movie aren’t horrible and not terrific but just middle of the road. I think these days, when you come to a movie that’s not absolutely spectacular people’s first reaction is just to say it sucked, and I think it’s because as movie goers, we’ve listened too much to critics.

Also, I think that maybe movie goers have just become spoiled. With digital effects more realistic and expensive than ever, it’s getting harder and harder to tell a story visually that anyone will buy. You think kids alive today will be able to view the original King Kong with the same sense of wonder that the people watching it in the 1930’s would, after watching the Peter Jackson version? What about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? I loved the Tim Burton version, but couldn’t help but notice now the original which shined so bright when I was a child, seems kind of drab now. Images these days have to be so indistinguishable from reality that we’ve lost out ability to let our imaginations take over and drive us the rest of the way.

Filmmakers are still putting the same amount of heart into wanting to tell a story and give people something amazing for a little while, but the people are no longer as willing to let themselves be transported back to when they were kids and the lights went down in the theater, and it’s really kinda sad, because without that sense of wonder, a movie really is just a movie.