With internet access let alone high speed internet access being available to just about anybody, just about anybody in most parts of the world have been given a voice. With websites such as "Rotten Tomatoes" and "IMDB," we have the chance to post all sorts of reviews online and give ratings. The magazines, papers, and other websites with professional critics tend to give a general review. "Ebert and Roeper" tends to give general reviews and they come from the opinions of the critics themselves.
You may enjoy watching one movie but a critic is going to say that it sucked without giving any further in-depth explanation. When submitting a review, you get to voice what you liked and disliked about the movie you had just watched. Professional critics tend to have an "elitist" viewpoint of things. But their opinions will differ from another person’s opinions. One publication can say the movie was great while another can dismiss it as garbage.
The thing is this; the critics are paid to give out their reviews of movies. To us, we like to watch movies for fun. Movies are merely stories on screen. One of the points of movies is to escape reality. In the case of full-length feature documentaries, they are to get the documentary filmmakers’ points of views across to audiences. We want to watch a good story.
In the case of online movie reviews, it’s to simply get our voices out. We have a voice, might as well tell the rest of the world what we thought of such films. So forth, it tends to carry more weight than the reviews of critics because the professional critics don’t have to pay for the tickets. But, we have to buy those tickets. Buying tickets can get costly. It costs at least nine to ten dollars to buy a movie ticket. Snacks and drinks cost much extra that it’s highway robbery.
Online movie reviews can very much give me a perspective of what to expect. In most cases, they’ll explain what they like and didn’t like about the movie. Perhaps you might like what you hear and decide to wait for the movie to come out on DVD. The other thing appealing about the trend of online movie reviews is that they can save you a lot of money. That means, reading those reviews first before watching the actual movie will go easy on your wallet.
The other reason that online movie reviews are more of a trend is that they can be regarded as user generated content. Movie reviews do count as citizen journalism as it’s becoming the new trend. We can write about many things from politics, opinions, and so forth. That very much includes movie reviews.
Take Helium for example, it’s provided a forum for us to write articles on a wide range of topics. One of these topics includes movie reviews. I’ve taken advantage of suchs such as Helium to write articles reviewing all sorts of movies I have watched. I’ve been watching a lot of foreign movies lately and found a forum where I can write such reviews on them.
Websites such as YouTube allows people to give a review in video form of what they thought of the movies they’ve watched. As user generated content is becoming a strong trend, online movie reviews will also become the trend. As long as people have a voice, user generated content such as online movie reviews will remain.
Think of it this way, online movie reviews lets viewers look at different sides of the spectrum. That’s something that reviews from professional critics do not do in most cases.