The Genre Movie: Mere Competence Can Be Enough

Last week, I saw the movie Divergent starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Miles Teller and Kate Winslet. Based on the novels by Veronica Roth, the movie is essentially a Hunger Games/Harry Potter mashup. Dystopia, sorting, heroine with identity crisis, revolutions--it's all there. Even so, I found myself really enjoying the movie (of course, I rented it for $3.99 on iTunes; perhaps I wouldn't have enjoyed it after paying $12 at a theater). While Divergent didn't really offer anything new, it did something that was almost as impressive.

Divergent hit all the beats in the young adult fantasy/action genre and hit them competently and efficiently.And that was good enough for me. Ideally, yes, all films should strive to be unique and surprising. But the reality is that most films straddle the line between decent and good. And that's really okay.

I like genre movies because you usually know what to expect. Whether it's a rom-com, a spy thriller or a sports drama, these films follow their formulas to the T. If done badly, it can be irritating and cloying. But if the execution is handsome and earnest, then genre films can really soar. And if a film can competently hit all the big moments in the genre film, then it is more likely that the smaller moments, the individual scenes and the supporting characters, will be more surprising and original.

Take for instance the romantic-comedy What If starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan. On the surface, it's a typical "friends or lovers" comedy that is fairly predictable. But there are a lot of fun, unique bits in the movie. Look at the Oscar winning 2010 movie The Fighter. That was a fairly typical sports drama, with drug and family problems. But director David O. Russell gave that film so much panache and flash and it had a crackling script and ace performances. And even something like The Bourne Legacy, which is not the crowning achievement of the Bourne series, is well-paced with decent acting and action. What it does well, it does well enough that you can sort of overlook its flaws and lack of innovation.

The key to a good genre movie is that it doesn't aim for lofty goals. It sets out to entertain and be watchable. IF a genre movie tries too hard it could fail. They have to be a little self-aware so that it competently goes from A to B. I liked Divergent and the other films listed because they knew what they were. By focusing on hitting the right beats, good genre movies can play with the nuances. Even if they don't, these films can survive by just being entertaining. Sometimes that's really all that matters.