It’s odd they still call movie criticism movie criticism. Film theory, still a relatively new field, only about a hundred years old, took a page from Literary Criticism when it first started being published. Actually it took a page from every form of criticism, whose main purpose was to analyze what film is, why it works, how it works, and what it means to society. This is all good, until film criticism became less about academic analysis and about providing information for consumers about what films they should spend their hard earned dollars on seeing in the theaters.

This is where the inherent problem with film criticism lies. To provide thoughtful film criticism it is important to discuss the film, all of the film, including the ending. How a film ends is obviously very important to the themes, characters, and narrative arc. In reviews targeted towards the average consumer, it is considered taboo to reveal “spoilers.” Rightfully so, no one wants to see a movie that they already know the ending to, but for fans of intelligent movie criticism, reading a review is insufficient in analysis of film technique. I move we stop calling movie reviewers by any other name, and let the critics stay critics.