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FILM REVIEW STRUCTURE

A good movie review should entertain, persuade and inform, providing an original opinion without

giving away too much of the plot.

When writing a film review there needs to be room for:

Important grammar mistakes that you cannot have in Intermediate 2:

Adjectives: place them before the noun, except after linking verbs. And do not use them in plural!

For example:

You should make a decision very important a very important decision

others countries other countries

Differents films -> different films

Missing words: generally, it’s the lack of subject:

You should remember how important is to study how important it is to

study

Or double subjects: English it will be necessary to work… English will be

necessary to work

Overall impression and general information

Factual data: film title, director, lead actors, year of release, setting

The plot: don’t tell every little detail. Try to summarize. Identify the premise, the

scenario that drives the action

Acting: how did the actors portray the main roles? How did they convey the lives of the

characters? Where they believable characters?

Film techniques: camera angles, shots of surroundings, lightning, cuts between scenes

Analyse the soundtrack, what is it? How is it used? Is it effective? Evaluate costumes if

they are important.

Themes: Identify the film message(s); how are they conveyed? Are they convincing

Conclusion: convince the reader that your evaluation is correct

Offer a clincher that tells the reader to attend the film or not, compare it to another

film.

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

Paragraph 4

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Concord:

This + singular noun: this book

These + plural noun: these people, these films

Subject and Verb concord: People likes listening to music People like

listening to music

Cohesion with pronouns – sometimes the pronouns you use do not

concord with the nouns they refer to:

He had many problems. When he talked about it, he got nervous …

when he talked about them …

Basic word order:

I like very much the cinema I like the cinema very much.

Spelling:

Words starting with capital letters in English: proper names (countries,

cities, people’s names, etc.), languages, days of the week, months, school

subjects, the pronoun “I”, but not the pronoun “it”

“Writing” and “written”

“Studying” Verbs ending in “–y” make the “–ing” form simply adding “–

ing”

The suffix “–ful” is spelled with only one “l”; then, there’s the word “full”,

which has nothing to do with the suffix.

Connectors / Linking words:

When you want to introduce a topic, you translate from Spanish with

“About”

As for … + noun / -ing verb. E.g. As for the drinks, don’t worry. / As for

buying the drinks, don’t worry…

In the other hand On the one hand … On the other hand