Momentum

I watched Zodiac the other day and it got me thinking about the ideal movie length. This movie had a runtime of 157 minutes. I’ve seen 2 other movies this yeah with a runtime well over 2 hours, Blood Diamond and Pirates of the Caribbean: at Worlds End.

Zodiac was not a bad movie, in fact I really enjoyed it, but when a movie takes that long to unfold the mind begins to drift from time to time. It has something to do with momentum. In a interview with Joss Whedon, I saw on the extra’s of the Serenity DVD, he talks about this and how a movie is a lot different from making an episode from a series. The most difficult part was the editing, a lot of great footage had to be cut from the movie just because it slowed the movie down.

The most ideal runtime for a movie, in my opinion, is 100 minutes. It holds up for almost all movie genres, except the historic fiction genre (Braveheart, Troy, Lord of the Rings). Those movies are meant to last longer to give it the epic feel, I guess. Or it might just be that they need that little more time for a good intro.

As I said, I watched three 2,5 hour movies, 2 of those had bad momentum. Zodiac had a part where Jake’s character, a cartoonist, retraced all the steps of the police, which slowed the movie down. They could’ve merged the scenes showing the cartoonist asking about it and then shown the investigation in flashback form. I believe it would’ve kept the runtime under 2 hours and made for a better movie. Blood Diamond had a part in which our heroes visited a schoolteacher in the middle of the jungle who got shot a half-hour later. This scene was necessary to get to the next point in the army base where they would drop the teacher for medical care, but this scene just lasted too long. This was where the movie came to a screeching halt and my mind started to wonder. I even went as far to pick up my laptop and started reading the latest current events on news sites. This should not happen when I watch a movie. And there are tons of movies where it doesn’t. Blood Diamond could’ve been a great movie, instead it’s just a good one. The final half hour redeems a lot, it even got me thinking it was the movie of the year, but then I remembered the part where I had my computer on my lap.

A movie needs to have good momentum, it’s what can separate a great movie from a good one. If you want to watch a great movie, go check the award sites and see which movie won best editing.