Watching Movies: The Issue of Turning Your Brain Off

Watching movies: Turn your brain off, or turn your brain on? 

Have you ever watched a movie and thought afterwards, “Wow that was dumb”? Probably at some point, right? Sometimes I hear people use the expression “just turn your brain off and you’ll like it” when referring to certain films that may evoke such a reaction. 

What does this mean? I want to dig into it, because the concept, as I understand it, is ridiculous. 

I’m not sure I can fully articulate how infuriating I find this seemingly innocent notion. Not everyone is smart, but if you have the ability to be smart, and recommend to someone who also has this ability that they cease to use their intelligence while viewing a particular motion picture, then I seriously question just how smart you really are. Why would someone ever want to view something with a damper on thought process? 

This is what I mean when I say “brain turned off”: the movie begins, and you make a conscious effort to mentally check out from what’s happening onscreen. You aren’t sitting there immersed in the story. You aren’t thinking to yourself “wow that actress is sure giving a great performance”. You aren’t wowing at the visual effects and asking how they did that. You are watching and hearing the movie in a passive state. Maybe the story doesn’t make a lick of sense? Doesn’t matter, your brain is OFF. Is this lead actor really that great of an actor? Nah, forget about it, brain OFF. Those visual effects don’t look very realistic. OFF. 

The reason often given for this brain-off recommendation is “you’ll enjoy it more”. The implication being, if you think too hard about what you’re watching, your enjoyment will plummet. Hence, brain turned off = better enjoyment with what would otherwise be unenjoyable. 

We need examples. What kinds of movies could fall into this vague-and-yet-vast category? Comedies? Plenty. You could include practically everything Will Ferrell has ever starred in. How about action movies?  The Fast and the Furious franchise contains at least 8 of them. Horror? My Bloody Valentine, Leprechaun, Tusk, Friday the 13^th. Sci-fi/fantasy? Star Wars (prequels and sequels). You get it. Nothing against any of those movies I just mentioned—in fact I’d say I enjoy most of them—they are just evocative of this concept. To say The Godfather or American Beauty or Castaway (those being three random picks) are movies better enjoyed with your brain turned off would clearly be a fallacy. Nothing about the way those films are made or presented indicates needing to think or engage less. 

But I’m just listing movies here. What, exactly, makes certain movies better enjoyed with your brain turned off? Let’s get into specifics. 

Grandma’s Boy is a 2006 stoner comedy about a video game tester who lives with his grandma, with plenty of gross-out humour and quirky gags. This kind of movie is designed to appeal to a particular audience, but in a broad sense, probably won’t appeal to as many people. Your own grandma isn’t likely to sit down and laugh her ass off at some guy jerking off to an action figure (yes, that actually happens in the movie), but a 20-something who’s just taken a hit off their bong may be more likely to do so. Grandma’s Boy is not well-acted, not particularly original, and not at all thought-provoking, but is it funny in any way? Yeah, there are some jokes that work, and overall, it’s humorous, in a dumb way, sure. Therefore, if you turn your brain off and ignore the shoddy aspects, you might get more of a kick out of it. 

Another stoner comedy comparable to Grandma’s Boy is 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. It is similarly lame-brained in its premise, with the titular characters on a quest to get burgers from the eponymous restaurant. Again, who is going to laugh at this more, grandma, or 20-something stoner? It’s obvious. But I picked both of these movies for a reason. 

The brain-off concept clearly applies to Grandma’s Boy, but not necessarily to Harold & Kumar. Despite being a simplistic story centered on a trivial mission, Harold & Kumar features well-developed characters, played by capable actors, with some very clever, original, and hilarious jokes and gags. And, it has heart. 

The distinction I would make here, is that Harold & Kumar is a good comedy, and Grandma’s Boy is a bad comedy. If I turned my brain off, theoretically I could enjoy both, right? Grandma’s Boy is funny, if the buffoonish script and poor acting is ignored. In this case (and many others, as I will soon highlight), the enjoyment comes from what one hopes to get out of the movie. If a viewer, such as myself, sits down to watch a comedy hoping for clever jokes and charismatic leads, I will not enjoy Grandma’s Boy…unless, ah-ha! I turn my brain off. But I can’t do that. And because of this, I did not find Grandma’s Boy very funny or entertaining, but I can completely understand how many others did (the film does have a cult following). 

I thoroughly like Harold & Kumar, for all the reasons I mentioned that make it something to be enjoyed with one’s brain turned ON. What’s difficult about this comparison is the nature of the stoner comedy as a sub-genre. Most of them aren’t targeting a sophisticated audience to begin with (no disrespect to anyone out there), but the concept still holds water, because you can’t really cite Harold & Kumar as something that’s best enjoyed with your brain turned off. You don’t have to tune out bad acting and bad jokes, but you probably will have to do that with Grandma’s Boy to get anything out of it.  

Though it’s extremely obvious to me, perhaps it’s worth a reminder: movies are subjective. There are no rules. No individual has to like or dislike any particular film(s). If you say “hey, I liked Grandma’s Boy”, that’s as acceptable as someone else saying “Grandma’s Boy is the worst comedy I have ever seen.” Though it can be a frustration, it’s also one of the best things about movies. There’s no joy quite like sharing in the love of a particular movie with someone else—or, inversely, the hatred of a movie.   

Let’s talk about some of the other movies I mentioned earlier. Star Wars is like a massive cinematic machine, in the sense that it has so many moving parts, and with every new sequel and prequel adding on to that machine, it becomes more unwieldly and closer to breaking down. The 1977 original is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made, no question, and whether you watch it paying close attention (brain on) or out of the corner of your eye while doing the dishes (brain off), it’s entertaining. But the Star Wars prequels are another matter. If you watch them for the visual panache (brain off), they’re still pretty good, but the plot contrivances and acting and logic (brain on) become problematic. A viewer cannot acknowledge these problems as being detrimental, and insist they cease to be problems if you simply ignore them. 

The newest Star Wars films from Disney succumb to deeper-rooted issues than just basic screenplay structure, which are commonly highlighted by the biggest of fans, as being inconsistent with the original trilogy, or repetitive, or just plain stupid. Their brains are operating at a level of ON that most average viewers won’t even be able to achieve, for the fans have watched the original films so many times that they can pick up on things that don’t make sense or are questionable in the new films that will brush over most others.   

Fast and the Furious has to be one of the prime examples of movies that are enjoyable if you turn your brain off. These are high-octane racing/heist flicks with attractive casts, fast vehicles, over-the-top stunts, and few traces of intelligence. Once again, it comes down to what viewers hope to get out of these films. If you want an action movie with well-rounded characters, realistic effects, and an inventive story, you might be better off watching something like the original Die Hard. If, on the other hand, you just want cool cars and guns and fist fights between the most muscular men Hollywood has to offer, and don’t care about the other stuff, you might find yourself really enjoying Fast and the Furious. I do not particularly enjoy any of them, because I don’t find myself engaged with what’s going on when there are no characters for me to relate to, no clever plot lines being forged, and too many unbelievable stunts. But that’s just me. 

There are many factors to consider when categorizing a film as being a brain-on or brain-off piece of entertainment. One of those is acting. Actors have to make the audience believe they are someone they aren’t in real life. Every word out of their mouth should be convincing. Acting, like just about every aspect of a film, is subjective, but on a broad spectrum, even the average viewer can pinpoint a performance that isn’t good (Nicholas Cage in The Wickerman), as well as a performance that is particularly believable and engaging (Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood). Individuals tuned in to the finer points of acting may even be able to offer a detailed criticism of a performance. If I turn my brain off, am I suddenly supposed to not realize that actors x, y, and z are actually not very convincing in their roles? Either they are good, or they are bad, regardless of whether my brain is on or off. 

Another undeniably key factor is story. What’s the movie about? This can greatly determine one’s enjoyment. As George Lucas once said, a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing (irony, I know). But, there are viewers out there who could care less about the story and really just want cool space battles and fast cars and awesome visual effects, though I think the numbers of these viewers are starting to dwindle, because special effects just aren’t as impressive or as innovative today as they used to be. Audiences continue to grow jaded with every new effects-filled blockbuster. 

Perhaps the biggest factor linked to this brain-off enjoyment of a film is expectations. No one should be going into a Fast and Furious movie expecting anything more than what the previous entry in the franchise offered, and it’s not like they kicked things off hoping to win Academy Awards or anything. One should not be shocked when Vin Diesel mumbles all his lines and does an insane trick in his car, resulting in a devastating crash, from which he walks away unscathed. The best thing to do is to check your expectations in the theater lobby before you sit down to enjoy any movie—easier said than done, sometimes. Let me quickly dive into a franchise I have loved since I was very young, which has since devolved into lurid fatigue. It’s Jurassic Park. 

Jurassic Park absolutely blew audiences away in 1993 with its realistic depiction of dinosaurs. It remains one of the most-beloved blockbusters of all-time, but every sequel continues to diminish what made it great in the first place. The latest entry, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, split audiences. Some loved it, some hated it. Those who love it are likely to say “just turn your brain off and you’ll enjoy it.” But, that’s idiotic. 

This is the fifth film in the series; the original made its premise highly believable but entertaining nevertheless. The new one throws basic logic out the window. For instance, in the previous Jurassic World, it’s clearly established that the mosasaur enclosure is in the middle of the theme park. At the beginning of Fallen Kingdom, it’s shown to be located right beside the ocean. Some have called this a “retcon”, defined as a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events. Simplified: they changed it for convenience. Yet all this did was add to my lack of enjoyment while watching, because it’s stupid. And there are many far stupider things that happen.

If someone observes a flaw in a movie, it can often draw others who are less inclined to make such observations to point fingers and brand that person as a CRITIC. No one likes a critic. Quit criticizing every little thing and just enjoy the movie! Turn your brain off! 

No. 

In this Jurassic instance, we have an example of a break in logic, in a previously established franchise with a pretty strong basis in logic. If the original Jurassic Park was established as a cheesy B-movie with dinosaurs that could speak and operate machinery and had plans for world domination, I’d be a lot more forgiving of something as simple and frivolous as a logic break. I’m not going to criticize Anchorman for being unrealistic when Will Ferrell’s dog starts speaking to bears in the final act, because it’s been clearly established from the beginning as a goofy comedy. 

For a lot of viewers, though, they don’t care about trivial details like logic breaks in blockbusters like Jurassic World. They just want to see dinosaurs in cool action scenes. And that’s fine! In fact, I envy those viewers, because they probably loved Fallen Kingdom and didn’t give a second thought to the mosasaur enclosure inexplicably moving locations from one movie to the next. It all goes back to expectations.  

Here’s another favourite defensive saying: “it’s just a movie.” True. We all know movies are not real. There’s an inherent suspension of disbelief. If something doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t necessarily have to break the movie. When logic is broken in the world of the movie, though, as it is in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it takes viewers out of the experience in a negative way. But if your brain is off, I guess things like that shouldn’t matter. Except…they still do.  

If I sit down to watch a movie, lacking expectations, and realize it’s going to be stupid as it starts up, I do turn my brain off, but not in the way the concept implies. My brain turns off as in it becomes disengaged from what I’m seeing because I no longer give a shit. The principle seems to imply that it’s OK for a movie to be bad, and it’s up to viewers to temper their thought process based on what’s presented. I ask, why should we do that? Why should we not demand more from a movie? We paid to watch it. It’s not up to us to find the enjoyment in something, it’s up to the creators to present something engaging and/or entertaining, and if they fail, it shouldn’t leave us with nothing to fall back on but staring numbly at the screen as it lights up with flashy images devoid of any significance.  

Who actually promotes this idea, though? I’m speaking of it in a general sense, but it does have many proponents. I found a review for the monster-movie-video-game-adaptation from earlier this year, Rampage, on HCPress.com, titled “Movie Review: ‘Rampage’ Movie is Fun if You Turn Your Brain Off”. The review goes on to say it’s enjoyable, but not particularly good in the sense that it’s well-made. Well, if it is enjoyable, then I guess it wasn’t that badly made, then, was it? 

I liked Rampage. The action was pretty fun, the monsters were cool, and the cgi was decent. So, in this case, by brain off, the reviewer means not to think about the simplistic plot or stock characters or frequent lack of logic? He even says, “What do you expect?” Aha. Expectations. Turning ones brain off should not be confused with tempering ones expectations. Even the critic consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls Rampage a “brainless blockbuster”. Well, it isn’t Citizen Kane, now is it? It’s a monster movie. Exactly what part of your brain were you expecting to use while watching it? 

As I said before, film is subjective. Speaking of Rampage, Godzilla movies, for another example, probably bore a lot of people. It’s just some monster smashing through a city. There’s no depth. It’s been done a million times before. But I love it. I could watch that shit over and over and never get tired of it. Because for me, Godzilla is all about the monsters, the special effects, the visuals, and the cool sci-fi/fantasy action, less so about compelling characters and clever plot lines. It’s not that I don’t care if every successive movie repeats things I’ve seen before. The basic concept of Godzilla destroying a city or fighting a monster has been done to death, so if I’m sitting down to watch a new entry in the series—like 2016’s Shin Godzilla, for instance—l want to see the skeleton of what I’ve seen before, so to speak, but with a fresh skin over that skeleton. I don’t want something radically different. Don’t have Godzilla sit around with other monsters playing cards (although that would be pretty awesome), but at the same time, don’t have him fight Mechagodzilla again for the umpteenth time. Switch it up a bit. Shin Godzilla went back to the roots of the character, but also made it fresh. For some other person who isn’t a big Godzilla fan, this will likely not matter at all, and have no bearing on how much they will or will not enjoy it. 

A giant monster movie that I thought did not freshen its source material enough was 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. This is a perfect instance of a “turn your brain off” kind of movie. It’s essentially scene-after-scene of generic characters being menaced by creatures, with distinct cinematography,l lots of slow-motion, and little going on plot-wise. Don’t worry about that, though, just watch Kong punch the big lizard thing. 

Back to expectations again. Godzilla, somehow, can get away with being a sombre, character-driven story with the monster stuff coming secondary (like in the 1954 original), or it can be an over-the-top, downright goofy exploit of Godzilla fighting other monsters and useless human characters ogling at the sight (like most of the other entries in the series). I enjoy either take. With King Kong, it’s a different matter. The 1933 original is as much about the human characters as it is about the monsters, but the way humans and monsters interact (Anne Darrow being carried around by Kong, the crew being eaten by dinosaurs) is perhaps the biggest highlight of the whole movie. It’s firmly in the cinematic history of Kong that characters drive the story, so when that gets messed with, many fans will likely be turned off. At the same time, viewers without strong feelings either way might still enjoy it on the grounds of being a “brainless” monster mash. 

With the Godzilla series, it started off serious and about the characters, then over the course of several movies, became lighter in tone and focused more on the monsters, which is fine. But Kong has always been at his best when he’s among interesting human characters. So when Kong: Skull Island gave us human characters that were about as stock as they come, failed to have them interact much with Kong at all, and didn’t dole out a huge helping of epic monster action, it basically failed on all fronts as a Kong film, for me. 

And yet, a lot of people really liked it. 

My negative reaction is no doubt due to my passion for the original (and Peter Jackson’s remake). Admittedly, as a straight-forward monster movie? It’s not that bad. It’s entertaining in the most rudimentary of ways. But as a King Kong movie in the traditional sense, I find it disappointing, and I can’t overlook the flaws in order to find it entertaining, personally (here’s my review, if you want any of my specific thoughts: http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2017/03/kong-skull-island-2017-review_16.html) 

2014’s Godzilla went for a more serious tone than Skull Island did, and I appreciated Godzilla for what it was. It was true to what came before it, even if it didn’t achieve the greatness of the originals. And it could be argued that the human characters in Godzilla were as stock as those found in Kong: Skull Island. Again, everything is subjective, but it’s obvious that more effort went into making viewers care about the characters in Godzilla than in Kong: Skull Island, regardless of what you thought about them in either movie. 

Enough about giant monster movies. Let’s bring it back to the core concept here: turning your brain off to enjoy a movie vs. watching with your brain turned on. I’ve talked a lot about expectations thus far, and most of the examples I’ve given have built-in expectations due to being part of established franchises. So let’s strip that away for a second and think about another movie considered enjoyable via brainlessness that is currently standalone, free of franchise-trappings. How about Avatar? 

If you didn’t already know, Avatar was a big deal when it came out in late 2009. In fact, it was the biggest deal. If you were going to see one movie in the theater that year, it better be Avatar. It was a visual masterpiece that I found so overwhelming the first couple times I saw it, I didn’t really think too hard about the story. In fact, all I remember spewing about after the first time I saw it were the creatures and the action scenes and the 3D effects. OK, great, but how was the story, the characters, the acting? Good, I guess, but did you see when he flew in on the big dragon and attacked the gunship? Wow! 

Avatar is an easy example, but an apt one, because it’s so well-known, and its criticisms are equally well-known. What’s wrong with Avatar visually? Nothing. It really is stunning. What’s wrong with the plot? Basically a rehash of Dances with Wolves, but with blue cat aliens. The characters? Pretty generic. The acting? Mostly good, but some questionable performances. Turn your brain off, though, and suddenly you’re dealing with a cinematic masterpiece again, because wow look at those visuals! That music! The design of the world! It’s all so amazing! 

I like Avatar. I don’t love it, nor hate it, but I know people who fall on either side of my own reaction. Some still worship it as if it’s the best movie of the 21^st century. Others despise it for its contrived narrative and overabundance of computer generated imagery. Those who love it probably don’t care if it’s similar to Dances with Wolves, and might even reckon those who hate it are “thinking too much”. But I wouldn’t condone anyone of that. 

If someone questions my love of Godzilla movies, I can easily explain myself, but if they claim to hate such entries as Godzilla 2000 or Godzilla vs. Biollante or Destroy All Monsters because the stories make no sense and the characters are boring and everything that happens is predictable, I’m not going to say they are wrong, nor am I going to accuse them of overthinking it. I’m not blind to the shoddier elements of Godzilla movies. My enjoyment of all the other stuff simply overshadows it, the way a Fast and Furious fan’s enjoyment of watching Vin Diesel race his fast cars might overshadow the mediocre plot, or Avatar fans are swept up by the visuals to the point where they don’t notice (or mind) that the plot is extremely similar to Dances with Wolves. Acknowledging a film’s shortcomings is not the same as making excuses for them. 

So we’ve established there are people out there who recommend others turn their brains off when viewing certain movies, but some people just want to do it for themselves. Maybe there’s a guy who’s had a long day at work. He comes home, utterly exhausted, and puts on the TV. He wants to watch something that isn’t going to require extreme focus and figuring out, so something like Inception or Donnie Darko is out the window. Nothing too harrowing or stressful. No Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now. He wants a junk food version of a movie. How about just some mindless action? Yeah, throw on Fast & Furious 6 or Jurassic World or Avatar. Pay no attention to logic breaks or familiar story elements or bad acting. That’s a completely acceptable thing to do. But here’s the thing: if you aren’t paying attention to those things, is your brain really turned off? 

The way I understand it is, viewers who claim a movie is a turn-your-brain-off-to-enjoy (TYBOTE) are acknowledging how bad it is, on some level. The reason I started in on this concept in the first place is because a friend of mine said after we watched 2017’s The Mummy that is was “a good movie if you turn your brain off.” So, he acknowledged it was actually bad, right? Like, he saw it, he took it in, digested it, and churned out a response. What was my response to the movie? Here’s the link (not a review, much of what I said there relates to this: http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2017/06/problems-with-blockbusters-and.html)

My response to him was, well, frustrated. No, there was nothing enjoyable about The Mummy, because it was just plain bad. Even the guy who just got home exhausted from work, the guy who is not tuned in to directing style or character arcs or cgi quality, will sit there, watch it, and probably say he didn’t like it, on the very basic grounds that “there wasn’t very much good action”. And he’s right. The Mummy failed in every way, on every level. Even the lower levels. Moving on. 

I’ve covered a few movies now in different genres, but there is another kind of movie I want to address that seems to defy this notion of brainless film enjoyment, and that is the so-bad-it’s-good kind of movie. The Room, Troll 2, Sharktopus, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There are too many to list. These are movies that viewers watch knowing they are bad, but still find enjoyable. It might seem like a contradiction. Wouldn’t a viewer have to turn their brain off to enjoy something like that? On the contrary, I think a movie like The Room requires you to think even harder. 

To recognize the flaws is to be actively thinking about it, but when those flaws are so unbelievably obvious, or make you ask “how did they mess this up so much?” it creates a new level, or alternate level, of entertainment. I’ve watched The Room many times, with many people, but it is best enjoyed with a large group, because it evokes such a big reaction. People react with laughter at Tommy Wiseau’s line delivery and the bizarre plot and bad dubbing, but it’s still an entertaining experience. The film seems to imply it’s to be taken seriously, too, but that just makes its incompetence funnier, and the recognition of the incompetence is the origin of its entertainment value. Status of brain: turned on. 

So where are we at? Is your brain still on? I hope it is. I’ll say it for a third and final time: movies are subjective. People will always like and dislike different things. It makes life much more interesting that way. And you don’t have to explain why you liked or didn’t like something, either, or even possess the ability to do so. I can’t really say what it is about the original Die Hard that I find a bit boring. I like it, sure, I recognize its achievement as being one of the best action movies ever made, but personally, I don’t love it. I grow restless long before John Maclean makes it to the roof of Nakatomi Plaza. Inversely, I don’t know anyone besides myself who could sit down and watch Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth from beginning to end. There truly is something out there for everyone. 

Just please, don’t turn your brain off. And if you’re guilty of having done this in order to enjoy something, or recommended someone else do it, I’m asking you to stop. We’ve made a pretty clear distinction between liking something and owning up to it, and disliking something. Never make excuses for a movie. If you acknowledge something is dumb, or contrived, or flawed, and liked it in spite of all that, fantastic. I’m honestly happy for you. If you really didn’t enjoy it because of acknowledging the aforementioned observations, that’s every bit as acceptable. Own it. But if you think you can get away with watching something, finding it flawed, and ignoring your negative feelings on it in order to grasp for something positive to say, forget about it.  

Never settle for mediocrity. You should get out of movies what you want to get out of them. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom failed to give me what I wanted out of a Jurassic Park sequel. If I turn my brain off, I’m not going to get anything else out of it, entertainment-wise. I enjoyed Rampage, not in spite of its bad plot or dumb characters, I just wasn’t fazed by those aspects either way, because it wasn’t the appeal. I wanted to see monsters fight, and that’s what I got, and it was pretty good in that department. I didn’t have my brain turned off, I was fully aware of the shortcomings, but those shortcomings didn’t stop me from liking it. 

The biggest fear I have about this concept is, if people actually do turn their brains off to watch movies, it will allow for more and more sub-par movies to be made. If the bar is set high, don’t lower it. That bar should be locked in place, and can only move up. If someone asks me if I liked a movie, and then if they think they will like it, I will tell them yes or no or maybe or possibly or probably, but I will not stick a big ugly asterisk on there about how their state of mind should be prior to or during their viewing experience. 

If you read all of what I’ve written, or even some of it, one thing I hope you’ll take away is this: it’s a convenience to say a movie is better enjoyed with your brain off, but as I’ve detailed through numerous examples, if you dig a little deeper, you can determine exactly why or why not to enjoy a movie, without making excuses or adjusting expectations. 

Keep enjoying movies. Just make sure that little switch on your brain is flipped the right way, no matter what it is you’re watching.