Movie Theater Most Wanted! is the series where I shine a spotlight on the cretinous filth that ruin movies for everyone else. I'll give you a run down of the m.o. and a few of my personal experiences with the accused. First up we have The Explainer!
The Explainer is wanted for whispering at a volume everyone around them can hear, bringing a guest who knows absolutely nothing about what is going on and apparently has the I.Q. of a rock from the level of explanation they require, smugly referencing lines from previous installments as if it's a special skill, and sometimes looking up information they forgot on their phone in the middle of the movie. A truly diabolical figure The Explainer will stop at nothing to insure their movie going companion is completely on top of every detail of the movie no matter the cost. Now part of the blame must rest on the person requiring these explanations, use a little brain power people, it doesn't hurt. To be clear, I'm not talking about a few off hand comments here or a who is that once in a while. The chilling times I have encountered The Explainer they talked throughout the entire movie and chuckled smugly as the references they pointed out came to pass. This is not an isolated incident and you should be afraid!
I have encountered The Explainer numerous times but I will tell you about the two examples that still stick out in my mind as particularly bad. The first was at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug( I know bad enough without any help). Let me preface this by saying I am a huge Tolkien fan and have read everything he and his son Christopher have written and I love and admire The Lord of the Rings Trilogy from Peter Jackson. The Hobbit movies were a big disappointment for me and that may have made me more angry than usual which is why I remember it so clearly. So I buy my drink and sit down to watch the movie. About five minutes into the movie( we will get more into this in another edition of Movie Theater Most Wanted) two middle aged men came and sat down directly behind me even though their were plenty of empty seats( again more on that another day) so of course they sat right behind me. For about five minutes they were quiet and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then it happened, one guy says" who's that?" when Gandalf came on screen. His friend then proceeded to explain every single thing Gandalf has ever done on screen and said he was actually from a movie called The Lord of The Rings. Now setting aside the fact that Gandalf is really from the Hobbit to begin with, let's just say this was making this sub-par film even worse. Then to my horror the first man asked " who is bilbo?". I then heard the entire plot of the Lord of The Rings and the journey of Frodo in some kind of disjointed explanation from a guy who sounded like he had also heard it secondhand. This proceeded to happen through the entire movie including hugely loud howls of laughter at the kingsfoil callback and the legolas jokes from The Explainer. This harrowing experience made this movie even worse for me but unfortunately it would not be the last I saw of The Explainer.
Next we go to only a few weeks ago when I saw Rampage. Now you would think a movie like Rampage wouldn't need much explanation. I liked the movie but it is firmly a popcorn movie and doesn't have anything approaching a complicated plot or previously established characters( other than the game characters that the monsters are very loosely based on). Now as bad as the previous example was, this one was worse. Four old people were sitting in the theater when I arrived. Little did I know that one old man would become the bane of my existence. A few minutes after I sat down he began to have a full volume conversation about a trip to Europe a friend of his had taken and was showing the other pictures from his phone. He then gave a lengthy explanation about what went on in the Roman Coliseum which he said Julius Caesar built to execute Christians with( I am big into history so this was very painful) but it was before the movie so I let it go. Then as the movie began he started to explain, still at full volume of course, how Dwayne Johnson was in fact once known as a wrestler called the rock( who knew?) and that he had been in many movies, which he listed out. Then he explained that in the original game the monsters were people and not animals. Then he talked about how he wasn't sure if those gorillas were real or CGI. He proceeded to answer questions for his friends and comment on everything that happened in the entire movie. Towards the end he wondered out loud at full volume if the destroyed buildings of Chicago were practical or CGI. Now I can give the previous Explainer one shred of credit, at least he was talking fairly quietly. This guy was practically yelling. You think at their ages they would would know how to shut up in a movie theater.
This was a case of the friends being just as guilty as The Explainer. They just kept asking questions, just stop encouraging him! Not to mention a lot of the things he was saying were just flat out idiotic. This is really the guy you go to for information? While both breeds of Explainer are horrible, I think the full volume talking subspecies is worse.
I didn't start this series just to vent, please have some manners and don't ruin other people's time at the movies. Many people don't have the time or money to see a movie more than once, have a little compassion and common decency and don't be The Explainer. Maybe let your friend/wife/etc. know what is going on before you get to the theater!
Thanks for reading!