Random Pissings Episode IX: Curse of Expectations

In pretty much every negative review I've skimmed (trying to avoid spoilers; why is it when someone doesn't like a movie they feel compelled to try and ruin everything?), I keep seeing one main complaint about Reloaded: it didn't meet expectations. I start having flashbacks to four years ago, when another heavily hyped blockbuster came out in May and got druged by that nasty, despicable, filthy, horrible twelve-letter word.

Expectations.

God, I hate that word. "Expectations" is, to me, the ultimate dirty word. I've always found it pretty unreasonable to expect something from a movie, to demand something from a movie because you had something drawn out in your head of what you thought would be perfect and it wasn't what you thought it would be. Yeah, the movie was hyped to no end, but did anybody learn anything from Episode I? Never, ever buy into the hype. Don't set expectations at some unattainable height. Many people were expecting the Second Coming of Cinema with this movie; just because it's not, does that make it a failure? I never have expectations for a movie, that's what can kill any movie's enjoyment value, when you go in expecting it to be a piece of revolutionary filmmaking and it plays out and turns out to be simply a well made actioneer. When you expect something from a movie, you're subjectivly insterting your own views on how the movie should be, you expect it to be that, so when it reveals itself to be not your vision but the director's chances are you will be dissapointed. That's why I never, ever have expectations for a movie, except that it will be good. Beyond that, it's nothing more than anticipation for me. The waiting. The watching the trailer and thinking "This could be cool." Waiting with baited breath to get my tickets, feeling the electricity of standing in line at the first showing, experiencing the energy that flows through you when the lights go down. I can still go to the movies and be as giddy as I was when I was 10 because the only thing I expect from a movie is to be entertained in some intelligent form or fashion. Because I enjoy nothing more than going into every movie with no baggage, just sitting there watching a movie unfold before me and letting it stand for itself, not hampered by any hype or pre-concieved notions of what it should be instead of what it is. Discovering a movie and its merits while you watch it is the true way to judge a movie, not setting a standard so high that the entire length of the movie you're not taking it for what it is, but searching for what you tihnk it should be. Expectations are a dangerous thing, and I've found that life is much more enjoyable when you don't have any. Don't expect what a film should be. Anticipate what it could be. You'll find that there still is some magic left in Hollywood after all, if you just know how to look with the right eyes.

Greg C.

Piss about your own experiences with overbuilt expectations in our message boards. Got a complimant? Complaint? Death threat? Kudos? email me at greg@movie-vault.com