After two months, I have seen Ant-Man! And somehow, I have avoided all spoilers, reviews, and opinions in general. Yes, even as I write this impressions post, I do not know a single review rating! I have not even read the reviews by fellow critics that are linked below, although I will as soon as my review is written for tomorrow. While it might sound insane to avoid reviews, trailers, and spoilers to this extend, hear me out.
Regardless of whether a critically minded viewer realizes it or not, while watching a film, any prior opinions will affect your expectations going into the theater. If you are a reviewer, you will probably try to take note what others are criticizing in their reviews to determine if you agree with that opinion. Of course, everyone is different, but expectations do play an important role. In fact, many of my best experiences with films have come from the ones that I do not expect to impress me, like Inception and The Matrix. Therefore, for once, I wanted to go into a hyped-up film, like Ant-Man, without knowing what to expect, to have a different type of experience without any preconceptions other than the ones you expect from a Marvel flick. Obviously, this strategy is crazy for every film, but it is preferred for the films that I care about the most. I am curious to know what everyone else thinks of this strategy of watching a film, and it may provide an interesting topic for future discussion.
As always, below are links to reviews by fellow critics, and if you have written a review, let me know in the comments and it will be added. Please be sure to check back tomorrow for my full review.
If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.
Yay, finally! Can't wait to see your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking to me. :)
This is all very interesting. I like the idea of what you did, but I never have the determination to take it as that far. If it's a movie I know I'm seeing no matter what, I'll not watch clips or multiple trailers, or read full reviews, but I don't think I'd ever be able to resist looking at Rotten Tomatoes scores. I guess I don't like spoilers, but do like knowing what others think beforehand. I think the way I'm influenced by other's opinions is usually in favor of the movie (especially if I'm already predisposed to like the movie). Like with Ant-Man, it started out getting some lower scores than I was hoping for, but it only made me even more determined to like it. With Rogue Nation though, the scores were so good that I let myself get even more excited and my expectations grow, knowing that I wouldn't be let down.
I'm definitely all in favor of avoiding "watching the movie before you watch the movie" kind of stuff. I'm thinking that for Star Wars, I'm going to see if I can avoid any more trailers, clips, info on characters, set videos and such. It seems like that kind of movie that you should let surprise you. :D But we'll see how that goes once new trailers and things are actually released. :P
I'll be very interested to hear your thoughts on the film! :) Hope you liked it.
ReplyDeleteI think the method is a good idea. Hard, but it's definitely a good one.
I admire your willpower. It takes a lot of determination to avoid all the trailers, posts and pictures so you can see something with an unbiased opinion. I should probably do that to. Can't wait to hear what you thought of Ant-Man.
ReplyDelete