Movies Should Not Be Over Two Hours Long
This was a big weekend for me. I saw three movies. One of my most toxic traits is that I seem like someone who watches a lot of movies and yet, I have barely seen any in the last five to six years. A lot of this is because that’s around the time I graduated college and all my hometown friends moved away and I didn’t know how to drive and, thus, couldn’t go to the movie theater. And then my passion for movies just went away. But I’m back, baby (or at least trying to get in my movie-viewing groove again—mostly just so I can seem like I’m aware of what’s going on at the moment). I’m back watching movies in the theater and also at home because there is a lot to catch up on .
Here’s the thing though: movies are simply way too long now.
What ever happened to a tight 90 minutes? Do I sound like a little child with no attention span? Maybe I do. But, like, that is a good run time for most movies. That was the standard for decades—we’ve seen countless amazing films that run under two hours, so why can’t any “good” movie do the same thing now? There was no need for House of Gucci to be getting close to three hours long. There was so much of it that could have been cut and it would have still been a fun movie to see. Arguably, it would have been more fun!
So, going back to the movies I saw this weekend here are my critiques based on runtime alone.
Licorice Pizza (2 hours, 13 minutes)
This was that movie that everyone on podcasts were talking about, and the Music Box Theatre was running it so I knew that if I wanted to seem like a hot person who “knows” something about films that I needed to see it. The Music Box is my neighborhood theatre, so I went over there on a Thursday night and had to pay $18 instead of my usual $12 (I guess because it was a “special event” that was played on 70mm). The movie itself was fine, enjoyable actually. It was very visually appealing and although the movie was really about nothing, I never really felt bored since the jokes and characters did their job.
That being said, a movie about nothing—no matter how enjoyable it is—does not have the right to be over two hours long. They could have just cut out some of the running scenes. We all know how L.A. is built and there’s no way that all these people could get to anywhere they need to be just by running places.
Knives Out (2 hours, 14 minutes)
As I said before, I’m behind on movies so I decided to watch a 2019 classic in the comfort of my own home. As is my luck, no movies I actually want to watch are on any of the streaming platforms I pay for so I had to rent it. But that’s fine because this was an enjoyable watch.The only problem was that I started watching at around 8:30 p.m. and even though I didn’t pause the movie once it still felt like by the time it was over it was 2:00 a.m.
Because it was a mystery, I didn’t really mind that it was over two hours long. All the bits and pieces of the movie were actually necessary because everything was a clue, so it didn’t feel like things were dragging on. I just wanted to know who done it. I also was in the comfort of my own home and I was working on some embroidery like the heathen I am, so that might have helped the situation.
Scream (2 hours)
All of the Scream movies until this point were around the two-hour mark, so it didn’t feel longer than any of the old movies because it wasn’t. There’s enough going on throughout the movie (and this is the case for all of them) that it doesn’t feel like it’s dragging along. I’m not saying that other filmmakers should include more stabbing in them if they want to justify making a 2.5 hour-long movie, but maybe I am saying that. I have some other thoughts about Scream but I’m not going to say anything because the movie is so fresh, so just go and see it for yourself. It was a good time!
Looking back on this after writing it all out, I’m not that mad about movies being over two hours long but I am so mad that House of Gucci was over two and a half hours long. That was just so unnecessary. Not even the array of strange Italian accents was enough to distract me from how long it was.