Obviously these three movies; a dark comedy, a bio-pic and a family Christmas movie, are not all equally good, right? Yet all three, boasting a rating of 81%, would lead you to believe that you should enjoy all three of them the same. If three digital cameras were rated the same, you’d expect them to be nearly identical. But these three movies are far from identical so how could they be rated the same?
I think movie ratings makes more sense once you ask this question:
Were the creators successful in achieving their goal?
If they intended to make a comedy and it’s funny, create a horror and it scares you, or make a tragic love story that makes you cry, then it’s considered good.
This accentuates the importance of genre. Movies aren’t rated against each other, they are rated against their genre. Genres initiate a contract with the audience — setting their expectations. Movies are most successful when they not only fulfill those expectations but supercede them. Good movies aren’t able to go above and beyond the contract by avoiding the genre conventions, but by fulfilling them in novel, fresh and unexpected ways.
This is what gives the review from a trained critic more clout than the review from the average viewer: critics are experts at knowing what the rules and conventions are for each genre. They know better than anyone the genre conventions that must be hit, when they’re done in a cliche way and when they’ve been transcended.
