I think we’re reaching the point in film criticism where the fact of a movie’s existence is more important than the film’s quality, or the most important thing about a movie becomes how it advances a particular cause. Now we’ve always had gushingly negative reviews of stuff like Transformers movies or Adam Sandler movies, but now there’s a kind of righteous fury associated with tearing down a movie like Gods of Egypt (which, honestly, is rich coming from any site that idolizes Jupiter Ascending). And, conversely, the fact that there’s a Ghostbusters movie with a female cast is more important than whether it’s at all funny or entertaining.
Either way, the reviews of a ‘guilty’ movie will be of the This Film Gave Me Cancer variety, and the reviews of a ‘virtuous’ movie will be This Movie Cured My Cancer. If the movie being bad will advance the cause, then reviews of it will nitpick every plot point in a way that would make any film sound bad (”And then the heroes fly to blow up the Death Boob by shooting one vulnerable spot. Why wouldn’t the Empire cover that spot up?”). If the movie being good will advance the cause, then any criticism of it will be dismissed as sour grapes by MRAs and meninists.
Actually having an opinion on a story will become, by and large, redundant.
Translation: Society have reached a point were whitewashing and racism in general isn’t socially acceptable in the way that it was merely a few decades ago. This can be seen in peoples reactions to various films and it makes me uncomfortable.
How dare people be opposed to racism and sexism and positive towards diversity?!
What’s wrong with Jupiter Ascending?