However I can’t help but agree with Ben that a lot of movies, King Kong in particular are fantastic 90 minute movies stretched (like some disturbing OBGYN poster) into a 187 minute film. I loved the good parts of King Kong, and was confused by about a third of it. “Why is this here” I kept asking myself. “How long does this pointless scene need to be”, I thought.

It was the first date of my girlfriend and I… and if it wasn’t for that “beginning phase” relationship stuff… I think I’d have a much harsher opinion of that movie.

2001 is too long. There. I said it.

“Remember I’m the same guy who doesn’t think a movie should be longer than 90 minutes.”

To me this was saying that no movie should be longer than 90 minutes, which is a statement I just can’t agree with.

By and large it sounds like we all agree that there are many movies out there these days that overstay their welcome. And yes, MOST movies could get by just fine with a runtime somewhere south of 2 hours.

It depends on my mood, but on average I’ll take a well made 2.5-3 hour movie over a decent 90 minute movie any day of the week. I only listed a few quality movies before that clock in above 2.5 hours, but I could compose quite a large list were I compelled to do so. :)

The Ten Commandments – one of my favorite movies – is nearly 4 hours long yet I don’t find a minute of it boring. It’s pure storytelling because there’s a lot of shit going down in the Bible.

Watchmen – loved it. There’s actually very little plot, but the time spent on back stories is great.

I have nothing against long movies, I have everything against movies that are long for NO REASON.

King Kong – a great movie about a girl and an ape, but with 40 minutes of Jack Black being chased by dinosaurs tacked on. Apparently the STUDIO request it be lengthened, then they complained it didn’t make enough money. Duh, less scenes = less CGI = LESS COST!

It’s Hollywood’s “More is More” mentality. My biggest complaint with Transformers 1 was length – easily 30-40 minutes too long. Granted most of the filler was cheap scenes of Shia being a dumbass, but still, too long. Then the sequel comes along and for some reason is even longer! “We have more money, let’s put in more CGI!” Yeah, brilliant.

I will even concede that James Cameron – my hero until possibly next Friday – makes too long of movies. Strangely though not Titanic – that movie was exactly as long as it needed to be because unlike 99% of films out there it took the time to make us believe the characters actually did fall in love, rather than the usual “we’re in the same movie so I guess we’ve in love” BS. Call me a cynic but there’s very few movies I think the romance works in.

There’s an axiom in screenwriting that every scene must have 3 reasons to exist. Again this is followed in animation because every second of footage is so expensive. Live action, even with CGI… not so much.

So my point is, story supported there is nothing wrong with long movies. But when directors and studios stretch out 90 minutes of ideas to 150 minutes of bullshit… that’s where they lose me.

(Thank God the IMAX platters can only hold 2:40 of Avatar)

By ideal, we’re not suggesting that ALL movies need to stay within this margin. A movie is something that I can do in an afternoon to relax, but I really have to commit to something the moment it crosses the two-hour mark. I’m tired of having to fight to stay awake because some director has fallen in love with every frickin’ scene and doesn’t know how to edit his precious opus.

“In my opinion the greatest movies all go well beyond 90 minutes and some of them even DOUBLE that number.”

Yeah, but you’re hunting for the anomalies. The movies that deserve to be over 2 hours, in my opinion, are a distinct minority. Even if some of them are among our favorites, they are the exceptions and not the rule. I would still say that an ideal length is under two hours, in spite of some of the longer films I may like. Not every director is James Cameron.

I like 2001, and I could deal with that length because at one time, it was extremely uncommon for a film to be that long. It was actually rare and special to have a movie of that length, and so it wasn’t asking too much. Transformers and Batman, on the other hand, have no business asking for that much of my time.

“A runtime of 1:30 to 1:45 is generally sufficient for any film in this particular genre.”

I think that would be sufficient for ANY genre, including the summer action films. We can have 2-hour-plus films, but there had better be a good damn reason for it.

As for the movie length debate… Yes, there are movies that are too long. As I mentioned pretty much every summer blockbuster could have a half hour shaved from their runtime without much trouble. In the end it really depends on the story/genre. For instance, I’ve never understood why (under any circumstances) a comedy would need to be longer than 2 hours. A runtime of 1:30 to 1:45 is generally sufficient for any film in this particular genre.

Most movies are either short edited-down 1:30 minute suckfests or 2:20. Whatever happened to 1:45 movies?

I think that’s why animated films are so effective – they’re short because animation is expensive, and thus they don’t waste scenes.

In my opinion the greatest movies all go well beyond 90 minutes and some of them even DOUBLE that number. For my money 2001: A Space Odyssey is the finest film ever made. It has a runtime in the neighborhood of 150 minutes. Another one of the greats, Lawrence of Arabia, clocks in 220+ minutes and I would cut one second of it. Then there’s my personall all time favorite, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, that runs around 160 minutes.

I probably wouldn’t bother with movies anymore if all of them were 90 minutes or less. That’s not to say that there aren’t horribly overblown movies coming out right and left these days. The average summer blockbuster could probably have a half hour hacked off without much difficulty given that the all run 2.5 hours whether or not they need to.

I think there’s definitely a balance to be struck. It just depends on the film’s subject matter as to whether or not it deserves the extra time to tell the story.