Writing2

Zhicheng Zhang

Zack De Piero
Does Movie Reviews Play Magic to Attract Readers?
Everything we associate with every day belongs to different kinds of genres, which is
represented by conventions and common features. For writings, genre helps establish its
identity and serve its functions. A genre I will analyze in the essay is movie review, which is
an evaluation, a critical article on a movie. I am used to reading and writing movie reviews
every time when I watch a movie, because I am very interested in other people's opinions
what they find confusing, what they find surprising, and what they find worth discussing. I
choose to analyze movie reviews of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "Ride Along 2", and
The Hateful Eight from three popular review websitesReelviews, Rolling Stone, and
ABC. Movie reviews, by using conventions and common rhetorical strategies such as
background introduction, balanced vice and virtue analysis, and a fine line between spoilers
and plot analysis, enhance audience's movie-watching experience beforehand and afterwards.
First of all, what makes a movie review a movie review? It differs from academic paper,
novel, and other kinds of textual genres in a sense that a movie review conventionally
presents an evaluation of a movie in terms of argument to people who have already watched
the movie, as well as those who plan to watch. A movie review is a unique kind of writing
because of its audience, exigence, and discourse. The exigence of movie reviews is based on
the need of information exchange and the passion of movie fans. For instance, an audience
may not notice an importance detail; he cannot understand why movie directors put things in
this way; he maybe not professional enough to analyze all the techniques used to create a best
impressions and effects. Like a free market where there is demand, there will be supply,
discourse communities are created in form of movie review websites, in which people can
freely present and exchange their points of view about the latest movies. As Laura Carroll

notes in her essay "Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis", Rhetorical discourse is usually
responding to some kind of problem (Carroll, 48). She is saying that audience face the same
problem which is to understand and analyze a movie in terms of story line, actors, and
technical elements.
In Reelviews, the author James Berardinelli, in his review of "Star Wars: The Force
Awakens", introduces background and provides balanced analysis to help audience better
understand the movie. It begins with a brief introduction of history of star wars so as to
provide readers a little bit background knowledge in case that they have not seen the Star
Wars series before. The purpose of this review is to critically evaluate this movie and provide
audience with a good understanding of Star Wars. In a relatively casual tone, the author
mentions that "if theres a reason to be disappointed with The Force Awakens, its because of
the lack of originality and lack of a great villain...the space battles are well executed and new
characters are effectively developed" (Berardinelli). This quote epitomizes the style of his
movie review that is beneficial to audience because approaching to both sides alternatively
makes this movie review more comprehensive and authentic.
In Rolling Stone, the author Peter Travers reviews the movie "Ride Along 2" by applying
movie review conventions to provide audience with the best understandings and experiences.
The audience of his movie review is comedy lovers, for most of them must watch movie only
for Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. Following conventions, Peter starts with summarizing the
whole story in case that the readers forgot story lines. Then, in a casual tone, Peter notes that
that's right, folks. It's the same damn plot as before moved to a new locationa laugh could
die of loneliness in this setup if it werent for the two stars (Peter). The author complains
that the plot is the same as before, but he acknowledges that actors Ice Cube and Kevin Hart
arguably bring laugh to audience. In a similar way, Peter integrates both sides of criticism to
make his review balanced, well rounded, and easy for audience to understand.

CJ Johnson reviews The Hateful Eight on ABC emotionally but responsibly, keeping
himself closer to audience. To begin with, he describes his admiration for movie director
Quentin Tarantino, but immediately he presents his critiques that the movie is a little loose
and lacks rigor. He argues that "the Hateful Eight is a little loose. It is even, I hate to say, a
little 'self-indulgent' ". (CJ) However, despite a little bit criticism, the author still highly
recommends this movie because he is amazed by actors' excellent performances. CJ puts his
personal feelings into his movie review, as he notes that Tarantino is my favorite living
filmmakerthe movie is even, I hate to say, a little "self-indulgent"(CJ). The words
favorite and hate make readers feel that the author is honestly expressing his actual
feelings. To conclude, CJ Johnson follows conventions that a review is supposed to critically
evaluate actors, techniques, and the plot. Such professional analysis makes his review
credible and responsible.
Putting three movie reviews together, I find that they have surface-level rhetorical
features in common, which make them belong to the same genre and serve the same function.
Kerry Dirk argues that "[headlines] are a rhetorical action meant to bring about a specific
response, which is why I see them as being their own genre" (Dirk, 254). Like headlines of
The Onion make the newspaper a genre, some common rhetorical features in a movie review
also make it a special genre. They all focus on the two types of audiencethose who have
already watched the movie and are interested in finding more about it, and those who plan to
watch the movie and want to anticipate what it is mainly about. The purpose of it is to keep
group of readers as large as possible. Secondly, all three of the reviews are written in a casual
tone, because readers can more easily understand author's opinions, critiques, and
appreciations, and the casual tone also makes audience feel close to the author. Thirdly, each
review recaps the story before it gives any comments, so that readers are better prepared to
catch authors' ideas. What is more, all three reviews present critiques as well as

commendations of plots, characters, and techniques, so that they are balanced and fair enough
for the audience to accept. Not only people who have not watched the movie, but also those
who have already watched the movie are benefited from movie reviews, because movie
reviews allow them to look back and interpret the movie in a new perspective that might help
audience truly understand the movie. These surface-level conventions presented in three
reviews give those texts a common identity called movie review, but also provides audience
with an enjoyable experiences.
Secondly, three reviews share many conventions and common techniques in their
analysis. Three authors use evidence in movies to support their criticisms. For example,
James argues that "The Force Awakens lacks a great villain" (Berardinelli), and then he shows
the evidence that " Ren is a poor mans Vader, prone to temper tantrums and selfdoubt"(Berardinelli). Supporting ideas by showing evidence makes a review more
convincible. Three authors also draw a fine line between spoilers and plot analysis. They are
very careful when analyzing stories in the movie, because for audience who have not watched
the movie, a little spoiler could make them suffer when they are in movie theater. These
common techniques indicate that all the authors are very responsible, because they care about
audience in a way that they try their best not to ruin audience's watching experience.
However, some differences that I observed also make each movie review special. The
author James Berardinelli compares the latest Star Wars with former ones, because it is a
movie series and the author is able to better analyze the new movie when he draw
comparisons in terms of plot, characters, and techniques. Peter Travers uses visual literacy as
he reviews Ride Along 2. He puts many movie pictures in his review in order to make up
realistic movie scenes. It is beneficial because readers usually remember what was going on
in the movie when they look at those pictures in the review.

Learning genre is definitely helpful for us to understand the world around us, because it
not only helps us to categorize subjects in order, but also gives us clues of how things are
supposed to be. Kerry Dirk points out that "on a brighter note, genres help us to make more
efficient decisions when writing" (Dirk, 259). The reason is that we would have past
experience to help us when we are in similar situations. For example, when we are going to
write a movie review, from past experiences, we know many conventions such as presenting
opposing sides of comments, introducing the story before analyze it, and avoiding spoilers.
Similarly, studying genre also help us when reading. For instance, every time when we read,
we can use genre to anticipate what techniques and rhetorical features author will use in the
same kind of texts, which helps us better interpret author's intentions. When applied to a
further situation than reading, studying genre helps us find conventions, identify and
comprehend things, and communicate with each other in efficiency.
In conclusion, movie review plays an essential role in helping audience better understand
the movie. Through analysis of movie reviews from Reelviews, Rolling Stone, and ABC, we
can see that writers are really responsible to audience and focus on enhancing audience's
movie-watching experience by applying conventions and common rhetorical features in their
essays. Thus, learning genre is really helpful because it helps establish an identity and a style,
but also helps us better comprehend and communicate.

Work Cited
Berardinelli, James. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens (United States, 2015)". 16 Dec. 2015
Reelviews.
Travers, Peter. "Ride Along 2". 15 Jan. 2016. Rolling Stone.
Johnson, CJ. "CJ John Reviews The Hateful Eight". 19 Jan,2016. ABC Local.
Dirk, Kerry. Navigating Genres. Parlor Press
Carroll Laura. Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis.