Lukas Liebermann

I am an ESL teacher and educational psychologist.

Film Review

Content

  • Does the review have a descriptive heading? (Review on its own is not a descriptive heading.)

  • Does your review have a clear structure? Is it divided into paragraphs, where each paragraph deals with one idea?

  • First paragraph:

    • Does the first paragraph contain your brief1 overall opinion of the film (in two to three sentences)?

    • Does the first paragraph give some basic facts like the title of the film (underlined), the names of the actors and the year of release2?

  • Second paragraph:

    • Do you provide a short summary of the plot.

    • Do you provide enough detail so your reader knows what the film is about but not give away3 the ending.

  • Third paragraph (the most important part of your review!):

    • Do you give your opinion and explain it?

    • Do you give concrete examples from the film when you present your opinion?

    • Do you consider different aspects (i.e. two or more), such as acting, the music and sound effects, special effects, how well the dialogue is written, how entertaining the plot is …

  • Final paragraph:

    • The final paragraph should include your recommendation(s)4. You can suggest who the film would most appeal5 to.

    • Did you give reasons for your recommendations.

Language

Hint: The language criteria are very similar to the criteria for a persuasive text.

  • You use a wide range of grammatical structures correctly. For example:

    • conditional sentences: If I were you, I’d …; If you are interested in XXX, you’ll …

    • relative clauses: XXX, who / which …, …; the XYZ that …

    • questions

  • You use the correct tenses. For summaries, we generally use the present simple.

  • You use a wide range of vocabulary correctly and you paraphrase words you don’t know. You don’t use German.

    • strong adjectives and adverbs

    • comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs

    • interesting nouns

  • You connect ideas with transition words. For example:

    • Effect and consequence: as a result, then, because, …

    • Time and sequence: as soon as, during, since, until, whenever, …

    • Compare and contrast: like, similar to, compared to, although, as XXX as YYY, …

    • Examples: for example, for instance, such as, another example of XXX is YYY, ….

  1. A brief piece of writing does not contain too many words or details. ↩

  2. When a company releases a film, it becomes available so that people can buy it or see it. ↩

  3. If you give away information you tell somebody about information you should keep a secret. ↩

  4. A suggestion that something is especially suitable for a particular situation or person. ↩

  5. If something appeals to you, you like it or want it. ↩