I’m so fucking tired of seeing people using this in their review. If you have been critiquing movies all of your life you’re bound to see some unoriginality. Judging something on whether or not it was trying to be different is not a genre of criticism.
Pointing out similarities is one thing but downsizing on a movies entertainment value because in your 30-40 years of living you’ve seen someone do something similar does not make it a better or worse experience.
On the one hand you say you’ve looked at something like Trolls and say. “Oh look. Romeo and Juliet-esque colorful comedy about loving yourself and others. Been there done that.” But then you critique positively on the 6TH FUCKING NEED FOR SPEED MOVIE. I mean, seriously? I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.
“We’ve seen this before” and “They did it better” are NOT critiques. They are comparisons and contrasts. If you want to say Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka is better than Johnny Depps Charlie and the Chocolate Factory you can present an argument. But to say that Charlie was a worse movie because it wasn’t the original says literally nothing about the quality of the movie itself. Both movies translate a timeless story and have very similar and very different ways of presenting it. Was Jungle Book horrible because it wasn’t the 2D classic? Is Megaman horrible because it’s similar to Astroboy?
I don’t usually subscribe to the notion that you should “turn your brain off” and “view a movie from a childs eyes” because you’re reviewing it as you are. There’s things I genuinely hated about Trolls and there’s things I loved. I take the bad with the good and judge it as it is. That’s what you do. If you’re so god damn worried about originality then find another fucking hobby/career. Hundreds of people do it already and thousands have done it before you.
That being said. Trolls was a solid 7.5/10 for me. 6/10 as most people rated it is unacceptable. I’ve seen 6/10 movies and I think people tend to forget what they actually look like.
