Marter said:
The world has moved on from Dan Brown novels; the movies should, too.
Is it just me, or is this line of criticism (that you can see everywhere these days) kind of... odd? Essentially it's saying "this stuff is no longer trendy, so nobody should make/like it." Because it's everyone's duty to be fully current with our entertainment, so we can all have One Epic Zeitgeist together? All the
Fandom ('scuse me while I cringe at the term) enjoying the approved Product as one mighty undifferentiated mass!
The reviewer doesn't care for the movie; that's cool. I'm not overly thrilled by the prospect of it either, not even having liked
The Da Vinci Code. But is there no way to present this opinion without some obligatory anti-
Inferno "community building", as it were? Leery as I am of some of the more elevated claims for the "Artistic" value of much pop culture fodder, I still find this approach of treating it as nothing but a matter of badges of belonging, disposable at the whim of "trend-setters", somewhat shocking.
Note that I don't mean to single out this particular reviewer for adopting this reductive view of culture. As I said, it's everywhere: fittingly enough, an epidemic in itself. This just happened to be the moment when the grinding of my gears finally produced a spark.