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Warning: This article contains spoilers
01/10/2005 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
Reviewing films for Mark is a game with certain rules. In fact, he has his own three laws of reviewing films. They are, he muses, yet another set of three laws inspired by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. I. For the viewer who has not seen the film, do not damage his/her enjoyment of seeing the film and where possible improve his enjoyment.
II. Tell the truth about a film except when in conflict with the First Law.
III. Make the review interesting for people who have seen the film will find interesting and entertaining about the film except when in conflict with the First or Second Law.
I have had occasions when the First Law trumped the Second one. It is fair game to lie about a film rather than spoil a film for the reader who has not seen it. I have also had times when the Second Law trumped the Third Law, though I will not go into that. Sometimes that First Law trumps the Third Law, and that is what I will be talking about here. I want to make my writing interesting enough to read without damaging the film experience for those who have not seen it.
I am willing to allow a review to be less interesting than it might be in order to avoid giving too much away. However there are extreme cases when there is little that can be said without really damaging the film. For example, it is a bit of a spoiler for a film like VANILLA SKY to even give away what genre it is in. Knowing the genre gives away a twist that comes in the plot fairly far into the film. I felt I had to say something about the film in my review, so I put in strong spoiler warnings. This is a way I could say something of substance about the film to people who have seen it and I am telling the those who have not to read the review at their own risk.
About the time I reviewed the film I discussed the review with a friend of mine, a film critic of some prominence. I was saying that a film like VANILLA SKY is very hard for me to review because anything I would say of substance would be a spoiler. I was surprised with the vehemence of his response. He told me, "I hope you are not one of those anti-spoiler fascists." I have to say that I think I might just be one of them.
My principle is that regardless of what the reviewer thinks of a film there is an unwritten rule that the reviewer should always increase the reader's enjoyment of the film. Under no circumstances should the reviewer actually decrease that enjoyment. As far as revealing plot twists, I can reveal nothing that the viewer does not know ten minutes into the film. Frequently this turns writing a review into a puzzle. My piece on TERMINATOR 2 was the only review of the film I read that did not reveal that in this outing Arnold Schwarzenegger was the good guy.
It is clear from the film itself that this twist is supposed to be a surprise. Yet even the trailer gave the secret away. Every review I saw but my own gave the plot point away. I had to carefully choose my words in ways that probably most people did not notice so that it was left ambiguous in my writing which side Arnold was on. What brings this discussion to mind, in fact, is that I am writing this just after I reviewed the film RED EYE. I left an almost identical ambiguity in that review to avoid spoiling a plot twist that is early in the film but not in the first ten minutes.
In some cases I have declined to write a review because I could not do it without spoiling a major plot twist. LADYHAWKE is nearly impossible to review by my principles since the main premise is not revealed until well into the film. My principle is that it is better to sacrifice the quality of a review or to not write it at all than to diminish the viewers' pleasure on seeing the film. I took notes on that film and had every intention to write a review, but I could not find a way to describe the basic situation without giving away the nature of the curse. (P.S. Okay, it is twenty years late, but I will say what I thought of the film. I think the rock score really spoiled the nice historical feel that the production designer gave the film. The final sequence is also too far drawn out. The situation of the two lovers is, however, poignant. I would give LADYHAWKE a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. There, that is out of the way at last.)
I guess taken to its extreme, I could not even reveal if in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Klaatu is a good alien or a bad alien. If you look at the film, the director clearly wanted to frighten the audience and leave Klaatu's nature unknown until he arrives at the boarding house. And the advertising campaign tried to make the film look to be horrific.
http://tinyurl.com/adznq
It was not uncommon in 1950s science fiction films to create suspense using ambiguities to be dissolved later in the film. THEM! tries for the entire first act to pass for a police procedural crime drama. Here, however, the advertising campaign was not so discreet.
http://members.tripod.com/count_floyd/poster6/them.jpg
The call of what to reveal about a film may depend on many things. I think the writer has to consider the intention of the script. Then I follow the ten minute rule. If someone does not want to hear about a plot twist from the first ten minutes, he should not be reading reviews. However, after the first ten minutes of the story anything spoiled by the reviewer is the reviewer's fault.
Ironically the film distributors' interests are at odds with the film viewers. The distributor might want the reviewer to give away jokes from a Woody Allen comedy, for example, because the reader might find them funny and will want to see the film. It is a free sample. But revealing a joke may decrease the viewers' enjoyment of the film experience itself. The distributor wants to sell tickets and is willing to give a sample that to sell the film. Frequently a trailer will give much too much away.
THE ISLAND is a recent example. A reviewer given special showings by the distributor might feel he owes something to the distributor to help in that process. I do not feel that way. I personally don't feel I feel I owe anything to the distributor and do not want to reveal too much just to help sell the film. I have to keep in mind my first principles of reviewing as expressed in those laws at the beginning of this column.
Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper 
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