When I review a movie, I give it a verdict at the end on the normal grading scale of A-F with pluses and minuses as appropriate. Things you need to know about my system are:
1) I largely rate the movie based on whether I liked it, not on technical merits or the quality of acting or script or any other such nonsense. Translation: I’m not generally going to analyze something to death. That being said, bad acting and lousy scripts can certainly make me not like a movie.
2) My mood changes. My ratings are at least partially based on my mood, how much sleep I’ve gotten, how recently I’ve eaten, and whether I’ve watched better (or worse) movies recently. You can do your best to try to rank movies I’ve reviewed over the course of years, but don’t be surprised if there’s some inconsistency.
3) I try to rate movies internally to themselves. I expect a movie like Fantastic Four 2, for example, to be a pretty silly movie but since that’s what F4 means to me, I’m unlikely to ding them for that. I can easily overlook plot holes and cheesy dialogue if I feel that the movie is still fun and worth watching. You’ve been warned.
4) I reserve the right to ignore any or all of these rules and will probably do so often.
[...] My friend Josh has begun an authoritative guide to the 2007 summer movie season over on his blog, Lykaon’s Lair. He posts his thoughts and a final verdict on each film as as he watches them. [...]
I think FF2 should be dinged if Galactus doesn’t look like this:
http://www.lostonwallace.com/images/lostongalactussmall.jpg