When it comes to assessing if a movie is a good watch, it seems that there's not much legwork for us to do since publicity covers almost everything. From entrancing movie posters to exciting movie trailers to movie reviews, it seems that we have everything we need to assess a movie even before the film reaches the theatre. However, if we were to look closely at what movies that we really want to watch, we can really see that each of us have differences preferences for the film playing on the big screen and all these publicities do not really work.
To assess if a movie is a good watch for us, we really have to look inwards rather than outwards. A great tool to use is a set of questions that each of us should ask ourselves before heading for the theatres, and they are as follows:
What type of films do I prefer? : For most of us, there are some movies that we will probably like to catch on the big screen while saving the rest to watch out for on cable and television in the near future. Our preferences in this area vary though. For instance, John might like to watch movie blockbusters for its special effects but would rather watch romantic comedies on cable. Janet, on the other hand, may have a penchant for comedies on the big screen (it's kind of fun laughing with others in the theatre) but will probably steer clear of science-fiction movies as she's not really into the galaxies and astronomical phenomenon. So, our interest in the genre of the film does play a determining role in our assessment of a good movie and this is one question that we ourselves can ask.
Who is the cast for the movie: It's undeniable that there are some prominent actors and actresses who are known for their roles in certain movies. What's marketable about this fact is that audiences have a tendency to watch movies based on the cast rather than the thematic elements of the film. Thus, the cast of the movies plays an equally important if not more important role as compared with the storyline of the movie. For instance, some might love Al Pacino in film such as The Godfather and Scar Face while others might love to see Jim Carey in comedies such as The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. Thus, one way to assess if a movie has potential for high viewership will be to have a look at your favourite actors and actresses.
Will my usual movie-outing peers be interested in this movie: While movie publicities help in promoting a film, they are mostly positive. There are also less-publicised (indie) films which might interest us but regrettable, we are often not aware of their existence. A more reliable form of assessment will be to ask our usual movie-outing peers of their opinions of films. Accuracy of this method increases with the frequency that we watch movies with them as well as sharing similar sentiments about films after watching them. Most of us watch mainstream movies and thus usually share similar taste for films. However, for the minority who have a preference for arthouse films, this might be an issue when asking your peers as there might be a difference in preference, unless they are also part of the arthouse crowd. For instance, there was once I recommended an arthouse film to my peers (I am an arthouse film fan) but they do not take well to it. When I checked online for the review ratings for this movie, it rates merely a 1.6 out of 5, where I would have given a 4 out of 5.
With the abovementioned 3 questions, we should get a fairly good gauge if a movie is going to be a good watch. Of course there are unpredictable elements such as our actual receptivity to the movies while/after watching them, our own moods and temperaments at that point in time, plot twists and finale that are not to our liking and many more. Thus, there's no fool proof way of assessing if the movie is a good watch, until after we have actually watched them. This is just like music, where there's no way of sampling the track until after we have heard them.
But when it comes to assessing a good film, at least we can try, right?