What makes a good movie?

The answer seems simple enough. Acting, plot, director's passion, suspense, special effects, you name it. When all of these meet at the peak of quality, a good movie dawns, does it not? Perhaps. But is not each of these qualities subject to debate? You may think the storyline of a movie superb in its execution, while I find it clichéd and overdone. In other words, each person has his or her own views; and in the end, it would appear that we viewers determine the levels of each quality, and thus the overall value of a film. Yet, when 70 percent of people dislike a film and the other 30 love it, do we simply say it's a bad film, or do we deem it 'underrated'? What if 90 percent of people love it and the rest despise it? Is it therefore a good movie, or do only 1 in every 10 people truly appreciate art when and where they see it?

So we have ourselves a dilemma, and the conundrum remains: what makes a 'good' movie? The simple solution is to back away, concluding that 'good' and 'bad', at least in terms of quality, are relative to a person's individual tastes. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that is all we can be sure of. But such a conclusion, indeed I tell you, is lame. Let us instead veer our eyes to the abyss!

Take Breaking Dawn: Part 2, the fifth and final film in the Twilight Saga, for example. On Rotten Tomatoes, it scored 48 percent from critics and 88 percent from user ratings. According to the formula above, Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is a good film, and critics don't know what they're talking about. Now look at Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This film scored 92 percent from critics and 92 percent from user ratings. Another good film, yes? Indeed, ignoring what critics think, both films are almost equal in their level of quality. Breaking Dawn: Part 2 falls just 4 percent short. But lo! The father of modern fantasy nearly beaten by sparkly white people? This cannot be!

Fortunately, there is a distinction to be made despite these films' similar user ratings. Such a distinction eludes our first glance, but it becomes clear once the veneer of fandom has been removed. Both Breaking Dawn: Part 2 and Lord of the Rings have massive fan followings. Take them away, and what are we left with? For the former, barely the skin of its teeth. When those who love the film - those with biased opinions - are excluded, what's left is a multitude of human beings who despise shimmering vampires and ravenous werewolves (which, by the way, aren't werewolves. Read the book.) who for some unearthly reason risk everything to help an annoying, age-obsessed girl named Bella… oh, and her daughter Renesmee, who, for the record, is cute in the same way the rain maker from Looper is cute; that is, creepy. There is hardly anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks the movie is 'adequate', or 'moderately good', or 'disappointing'. It's either amazing (if you're already a fan), or it’s really bad (if you're anyone else).

By contrast, when you strip Lord of the Rings of its fan base, there is still much substance to be found. Unlike Breaking Dawn, hardly anyone despises Lord of the Rings. If you don't love it, you still like it. Over a decade since its release, I've yet to meet a man who's watched it and didn't enjoy it, let alone someone who hated it.

Still puzzled? Here are some skilfully-crafted graphs to illustrate my point.

You can clearly see that each film has a strong fan base. However, the distinction in quality is only revealed when you look past them. With Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a gradual decline tending towards 'hate', while for Breaking Dawn: Part 2 there is no such decline. Forsooth, the middle ground is an abyss where rotting vampire heads and nonexistent plot lines lie in the darkness.

In these cases, at least, where huge followings of people obsess over given movie franchises, the quality of any iteration in a franchise depends not on how big the following, but on everything else. Fans of Twilight love Twilight not because it's good but because it's Twilight. Similarly, fans of Lord of the Rings love Lord of the Rings because, well, it's Lord of the Rings. However, for those simply looking for a good film - those who aren't so much 'fans' of either - they will judge either film on its constituent qualities: Acting, plot, director's passion, suspense, special effects, you name it. The smoother decline illustrated for Lord of the Rings implies that those with unbiased views, who critique the film based solely on its filmic qualities, rate these qualities of high standard. The opposite can be concluded for Breaking Dawn, what with its abyss.

Now, I know what you're thinking. These graphs don't prove anything because, err, I made them up. True enough. But they reflect what I've heard and read from others, and they are furthermore backed up by the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. For Breaking Dawn, the difference between user ratings and critics' reviews is staggering, while there is absolutely no difference for Lord of the Rings. Critics allegedly hold unbiased views, so the consistency with regards to the latter film is undoubtedly something of which to take note.

So, in the end, what makes a good movie? I could conclude that consistency of high ratings and praise - from fans and non-fans like, but mostly non-fans - does. But I won't, for this still leaves those underrated films and those artsy shindigs that don't make it to major cinemas under scrutiny. For now, though, I think the underlying presence of the 'abyss' is a big factor in determining a film's value. Lord of the Rings doesn't have one. Twilight does. Think on literature or music, and the same distinctions apply. If anything, rest assured that not belonging to a fan club doesn't make you a poor judge of good media. On the contrary, if such a judge was ever needed, you'd probably be shortlisted.