In order to access the effectiveness of longform online writing I went onto the internet and found a long form film critique and analyzed it. When looking for the correct critique to analyze I chose a film that is very divisive amongst audience members and critics and I also chose the critic that’s been doing it the longest. With that being the case I went with Roger Ebert’s website and chose the new movie “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”. The author of the critique on the website is Brian Tallerico and from the beginning you can hear his voice and know his opinion.
Within Tallerico’s first paragraph you can tell that he was one of the people that found the film to be a rip off of the previous films in the franchise and very unoriginal.
“You can feel that weight of history and obligation, especially in the first hour of “Skywalker,” as Abrams delivers a movie that practically lifts off directly from “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens,” using that film’s combination of action and fan service as a storytelling template way more than the previous movie. However, the inherent rush that came in revisiting this world four years ago is naturally lessened, replaced by something closer to desperation.” (Tallerico)
By just reading this one quote you can tell that this piece of writing has a clear attitude and that the author wasn’t going to be vague about what he thought. But it wasn’t just his opinion that he used in order to give a good and well-crafted critique of the film. Instead he used previous films and other critiques and fan observations in order to give an all-encompassing review.
He drags the film for the first half pointing out the flaws, but then also rebuttals and gives examples of things the film also did right.
“After a clunky first act that’s filled with way too many scenes of people talking about who they are, where they need to go, and what they need to do when they get there, the film finally settles into a groove with an excellent chase scene that somehow both echoes “Return of the Jedi” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
The critique is written in a simplistic way that is easy for anyone to understand, but the only really unfortunate part of it is that it is written for people that have seen most of the other sequel Star Wars films, because it mentions moments from other movies and previous reactions the fans had to the other film releases.
Finally in regards to the overall online layout and structure of the long form piece the website has a great layout that allows readers to easily navigate through the page and had plenty of hyperlinks with in the piece so the readers can continue to read about the same movie or the actors and crew involved. On the left side of the page there is also a running list of the most important info, quick facts and crew/cast list so that anyone who doesn’t have time to read the entire critique can get some quick info and for something that is created for online purposes, quick and fast information consumption is important.
Overall, the film review in my opinion is an effective piece of long form online writing, it accomplishes its job and the audience who it was written for can easily understand what is being explained and can easily ascertain the author’s attitude towards the film with in the first few lines written.
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