Reviewing Reviewers: The NYC Movie Guru’s Dog Man Review?

Reviewing Reviewers reviews reviewer’s reviews that influence what you watch.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it,” is a phrase people say sometimes.  It’s delivered with a passive-aggressive flair to criticize you for vocalizing your dislikes. And usually, it’s warranted if you’re on the receiving end, because –

*There will be a brief break to acknowledge that this piece contains a higher word count than the NYC Movie Guru’s Dog Man review in its entirety.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it,” holds true with most things in this social-media age of pointless opinions, except when it comes to criticizing hate groups, corporate enterprises, and, more importantly, movie reviews. Most reviewers let their freak flag fly too much. Their works become the equivalent of an indecent exposure charge, or a manifesto found by the authorities in a grimy apartment. That’s the long way of saying most reviews are too long and say very little. But then you get a review like The NYC Movie Guru’s, which is 43 words (and that includes numbers). It’s a tweet (or whatever they’re called nowadays). It’s a wrap-up sentence that ends a review. Teenagers asking ChatGPT to write a brief summary of To Kill a Mockingbird put in more effort. And yet, this is a verified review that impacts Dog Man’s Rotten Tomatoes percentage. Due to its length, here is the review in its entirety:

“At 1 hour and 29 minutes, Dog Man, written and directed by Peter Hastings, is a mildly engaging and harmless, but bland, forgettable and too infantile to entertain adults. It opens nationwide via Universal Pictures.

Number of times I checked my watch: 4”

“But they review every movie being released that week in one post, so they would have a shorter style.” Except the films that they like earn multiple paragraphs that show competency in reviewing. “So, like a real guru, they don’t want to spend time with negative reviews.” Then don’t upload the score to RT and contribute to why reviewers get a bad name. “Wow, you’re like the coolest and most sensible person around.” That’s completely unexpected but thank you. 

We will now move away from the review being only 43 words, which has caused a descent into the madness of mediocrity. The review’s criticism also features some personal favorites (*sarcasm in use) of reviewers who review children’s films like they’re the film’s target audience. The idea that a children’s movie based off of a children’s book that was written for children to be able to read it is not made for adults is their biggest criticism. This “positive” guru specifically states it’s “too infantile to entertain adults,” which somebody used a thesaurus to find a harsher sounding way of describing it as being too “childish.” It feels like the kind of person that criticizes a toddler for not having the comprehension skills of a fully-grown adult.

The other funny bit of criticism, as there’s too much to choose from (*sarcasm in use) is the review saying Dog Man was “harmless.” This is where further explanation is required. Is the reviewer soothing potential audiences’ fears that Dog Man could be a piece of fascist propaganda? Were there concerns that the movie would make viewer’s heads explode in some glorious Scanner’s (1981) fashion? Or are they worried about repetition, so they looked to the thesaurus to find a word that is similar… but doesn’t quite mean what they intended to say? Is this review of a review putting in way more effort than NYC Movie Guru’s 43 words? The answer to the last question is clearly “yes.”

In the end, the guru is concise with their opinions. However, it is a comment, not a review, and another clear example to the flaws with Rotten Tomatoes.

Grade: F

If you’d like to read the review yourself (which was already provided above): http://nycmovieguru.com/jan31st25.html#dogman25