The document provides guidelines for writing a film review in 3 or fewer sentences: 1) A good film review should entertain, persuade and inform readers without revealing too much of the plot. 2) When writing a review, one should include their overall impression, factual details about the film, a summary of the plot without spoilers, evaluation of acting and film techniques, identification of themes, and a conclusion recommending whether readers should see the film. 3) The review should be concise yet provide essential information and the reviewer's original opinion on the film.

1. FILM REVIEW STRUCTURE
A good movie review should entertain, persuade and inform, providing an original opinion without
giving away too much of the plot.
When writing a film review there needs to be room for:
Overall impression and general information
Factual data: film title, director, lead actors, year of release, setting
The plot: don’t tell every little detail. Try to summarize. Identify the premise, the
scenario that drives the action
Acting: how did the actors portray the main roles? How did they convey the lives of the
characters? Where they believable characters?
Film techniques: camera angles, shots of surroundings, lightning, cuts between scenes
Analyse the soundtrack, what is it? How is it used? Is it effective? Evaluate costumes if
they are important.
Themes: Identify the film message(s); how are they conveyed? Are they convincing
Conclusion: convince the reader that your evaluation is correct
Offer a clincher that tells the reader to attend the film or not, compare it to another
film.
Important grammar mistakes that you cannot have in Intermediate 2:
 Adjectives: place them before the noun, except after linking verbs.
And do not use them in plural!
For example:
You should make a decision very important  a very important decision
others countries  other countries
Differents films -> different films
 Missing words: generally, it’s the lack of subject:
You should remember how important is to study  how important it is to
study
Or double subjects: English it will be necessary to work…  English will be
necessary to work
EOI Embajadores
Nov 2013

2.  Concord:
This + singular noun: this book
These + plural noun: these people, these films
Subject and Verb concord: People likes listening to music  People like
listening to music
Cohesion with pronouns – sometimes the pronouns you use do not
concord with the nouns they refer to:
He had many problems. When he talked about it, he got nervous  …
when he talked about them …
 Basic word order:
I like very much the cinema  I like the cinema very much.
 Spelling:
Words starting with capital letters in English: proper names (countries,
cities, people’s names, etc.), languages, days of the week, months, school
subjects, the pronoun “I”, but not the pronoun “it”
“Writing” and “written”
“Studying”  Verbs ending in “–y” make the “–ing” form simply adding “–
ing”
The suffix “–ful” is spelled with only one “l”; then, there’s the word “full”,
which has nothing to do with the suffix.
 Connectors / Linking words:
When you want to introduce a topic, you translate from Spanish with
“About” 
As for … + noun / -ing verb. E.g. As for the drinks, don’t worry. / As for
buying the drinks, don’t worry…
In the other hand  On the one hand … On the other hand
EOI Embajadores
Nov 2013