The "mindless fun" defense.

[brekclub85]

This being summer, the season of blockbusters, there's something I've noticed happen every year in regards to movies (and it will keep happening) is that summer blockbusters, and often just action movies in general, any criticism of those movies is met with something along the lines of "it's not supposed to be Oscar winning material, you're just a snob, it's supposed to be just simple fun."

After I while I thought about remarks, and I began to think "Does being a big blockbuster/action movie give you an automatic "Get of of criticism free" card?"

NOTE IN ADVANCE: This is not calling people who use this defense dumb, or even criticizing the movies they use this defense on.

I mean, whenever we go into something we want to see/play/read, shouldn't we all have some kind of minimum of how good we want it to be? Should we actually be going into action movies with an extremely low bar set for an expectation?

Yes, I know that each genre of movies, games, and the like can't be critiqued in the same way. For the action/horror movies I like (or more generally the ones I went to see), I don't create my opinion using the same standards I would to judge a more serious/dramatic movie. I don't expect the characters in an action/horror movie to be extremely deep, however, I DO expect the characters to be likeable, and from an audience perspective, I want to be able to know what they're like, even if they don't change much.

Action and horror (arguably the two most criticized genres of movies) have their own merits by which they can be judged. However, I don't consider these types of films to be critic proof. Far from it. With action movies, I ask myself, "Was the action good?" As previously mentioned, though I don't expect the characters to be deep, I at least expect them to be distinguishable from each other, with separate personalities. Same with horror, if the movie's main selling point was the death scenes, I ask myself "were the death scenes good?"

But that's not to say one can't mix action/horror with an entirely serious plot. Inception is a good example. It managed to be a very smart film, yet still be filled with action scenes. I'm not saying "this is the standard all action movies should follow", but I'm just saying that this proofs that you can do a completely serious/ smart action or horror movie, and it can still work.

Now, going back to my problem with people using the "mindless fun" defense, I'll use a personal example: Final Destination 4. By this point, I would no longer defend the series on a plot level, I was well aware by this point, all they could really do with the series was make up creative kill scenes. I went into the movie fully expecting a "simple mindless fun" horror movie, but I ended up disappointed by it.

Not because I felt the film didn't live up to "Oscar caliber" standards, but because the film failed by my standards for a fun gorefest of a slasher movie. The kill scenes, by FD's standards, were weak except for 2 exceptions. Also, I felt we got to know nothing about the characters, so, even though they weren't well developed (which I wasn't expecting), they could be switched around for the most part and the movie wouldn't be any different.

So, what do you guys feel? I don't believe that being escapist entertainment gets you a free "Get out of criticism" card, it just means there are a different set of standards by which it can be judged.

[WeirdRaptor]

Depends on the movie. If you're talking about Transformers, in which the very concept is stupid in and of itself no matter how you look at it, then yeah, I gotta call the "mindless fun" card on that one. There's no way that won't be mindless fun if the filmmakers are doing it right.
If we're talking about William Shakespeare's Hamlet, then yeah, I would hold that to higher plot standards.

[brekclub85]

Well, in regards to Transformers, the only Transformers-related media I saw prior to the movies was "Armada". For the movies themselves, I liked the first one, though the second one, while I didn't hate it, I just found it to be kind of forgettable in my opinion.

Back on my main point, another question I had is this:

If a filmmaker aims for "mindless fun", is it possible to fail at that? Like my FD example, do you think a film can fail in the mindless fun departments if that's what you were expecting from it?

[jansenov]

To answer your first question, everything can be judged. Even the people who say they don't judge the movie still judge it. If you have a brain, you judge things. It should be relatively easy to find action/horrors movies they won't enjoy one bit. Like Street Fighter? Ghosts From Mars? Ed Wood's works? Foreign movies (even if they are of good quality!)? Of course, if you are very into something, you may appear as over-analyzing to other people when talking about said thing. You should try slowly "educating" your "public" in the arts of action/horror, or accept that you won't be understood.

As to answer your second question, it is possible to fail at anything. There is no such thing that is so simple you can't mess it up. A movie can be utterly mindless, but not fun at all.