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A bunch of friends I know (As opposed to…? Never mind that.) apparently had the recent misfortune of watching numerically appealing movie 2012. According to them, it’s every disaster movie rolled into one wholesome Katamari, which is then repeatedly rolled into your face until you get a strong sense of rather accurate déjà vu.

Whilst they didn’t actually mention Katamari, they did give it a generally negative review, but I’ve no way of telling whether they’re right or were simply on helium at the time of watching and found counting their fingers more entertaining. Helium aside, there’s always the factor of personal preference. What my bunch of gas-loving mates found to be a long environmentalist boogeyman may be a thought provoking an- Alright, just for the sake of the argument, let’s assume we’re not talking about 2012. But the point is, I may very well worship what they consider an undesirable influence on young adults.

Which makes movie reviews, which is based around the whole business of telling people what films to watch and why, all the more stranger. Spoiling what you’d consider a terrible movie isn’t frowned upon, and may in fact be considered a public service. But spoiling a good film is bound to get you stoned to death, unless it happens to be a classic, in which case you’ll probably just be hideously embarrassed. But it’s very uncomfortable making that judgment based on your subjective opinion only, which is all you have to go by, really. So movie critics, or critics of any sort of medium with a plot, have to describe bits of the stories they review to justify why they like it or think of it as oddly good fuel, all while being careful not to spoil too much of anything.

But ultimately, though a critic can fan flames whichever way he wants as much as he likes, it’s really still up to the reader (Or watcher. Reviews in multiple forms of media are making this confusing and very meta.) to decide whether he wants to watch, read or play whatever’s being reviewed. So what exactly should reviewers and critics do?

They need to supply enough information about the stories they review to let potential audiences decide whether the subject matter might appeal to them, talking about themes, atmosphere and acting while avoiding too much exposition, and that’s when criticism may very well border on being the subject of criticism itself.