The most prominent review of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning via Google search is, well, something of a mystery.
Much has been written, not least by myself, as to how Google is affecting the entertainment website reporting world. About how its shifting algorithms, and heavy investment in AI, is seeing previously wonderful outlets having to become shells of themselves., lest they lose the Google traffic that pays the bills.
There’s a piece, for instance, over at Bloomberg that talks about how editorially-driven websites are going out of business, even if they play by the Google game. But that the AI summation at the top of a search results screen now is taking material that’s been written and paid for by sites, and represented by Google without even offering a clickback.
It’s also changing the way films are being reviewed.
This week, the final chapter in the long-running Mission: Impossible movie saga has arrived in cinemas. As per the norm, there’s a flood of reviews from a mix of named critics, newspapers, film websites and influencers. I thought it might be an interesting ‘state of the nation’, therefore, to search for something as simple as ‘Mission Impossible Final Reckoning review’, popping that into a Google search box to see what’s spat out.
Standard disclaimer, of course. Google in theory builds results around what it knows about you, but also there’s still some stuff that’s pretty omnipresent. I asked a colleague too in a different part of the country to do the same search, and the same results came up.
At the top of the results screen then, brief information about the movie, and then down the right hand bar – on a desktop screen – a little more data.
But in terms of the first review to actually come up – above the magical ‘fold’ (that is, the top half of the screen, which most people won’t scroll beyond) – here’s what I was presented with.
Straight away, it’s the audience reaction that’s been prioritised. Fair enough: this is a day or two after the release of the film that I’m writing this, and perhaps if I’d searched a day or two before, I’d get a broader critical response.
Look, though, towards the bottom of the picture.
The first actual review, with text, is also from an audience member. It’s from a chap called Miraz Hazarika, who I’m not familiar with, and he posted a review five days ago. He was a fan, too, declaring how much he loved the film.
As per Miraz, ‘As an Indian moviegoer and longtime fan of the Mission: Impossible franchise, I walked into The Final Reckoning with high expectations—and walked out overwhelmed, moved, and utterly satisfied. This film is more than just a conclusion; it’s an emotional farewell to one of the greatest action sagas of our time.’
Miraz has written 322 words on the film, and given it 4.5 out of 5, rounded up to five stars by Google. 320 people, to date, have clicked to say that they’ve found his review helpful.
He was, at the point this was written, the most prominent text reviewer of the film in the world, as least as far as my results screen goes. The vast majority of traffic to websites and their work still comes via Google search.
I clicked on his name, curious why his, out of every review written of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning on the planet, was the top choice that Google presented me with, the one listed above all others. In truth, with no disrespect to him, I’m none the wiser. Miraz, it appears, has only written one review before, according to Google, and that was three weeks ago.
In that instance, he penned some thoughts on Gareth Evans’ 2014 action thriller, The Raid 2. Miraz said of this that “Raid 2 is a powerful and engaging film that highlights the dedication and courage of income tax officers.”
I’ve watched The Raid 2, and not, in truth, had that takeaway from it. But fair enough: we’re all different, and if Miraz was struck by that, then it’s absolutely his right to say so.
Still, something didn’t feel right here. I thus took the text of both of Miraz’s reviews, and ran them through the service GPTZero. This, to be clear, isn’t a foolproof system (there’s some debate at whether services like this really work), but it’s pretty decent at spotting when people have used a service such as ChatGPT to do a bit of scribbling for them.
You copy the text in, press the Scan button, and you get a ‘probability’ score as to whether it thinks the text is AI generated or not.
Here’s what happened.
GPTZero suggests a 100% probability that Miraz’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning review was written by AI, and then a 100% probability score that his The Raid 2 verdict was also AI generated.
To be clear, they may not be (although both pieces, even without GPTZero, weren’t passing – for me anyway – the ‘was this written by a human’ sniff test.) Miraz, to his credit, may have struck gold, and these may be his actual views.
But it’s hard to shake the suspicion that there’s something not right here. Even if we go with the benefit of the doubt, that Miraz is a real person and wrote every word himself, he’s still – all due respect to him – an odd choice to hold the prime position for a Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning review on Google.
I do, of course, have a vested interest here. I wrote the Film Stories review of the movie, and this isn’t a site that plays the clickbait game very well. As such, I wasn’t too surprised to see my work not pop up until the fourth page of Google results. I was surprised that higher profile outlets were stuck on page three.
Also, to be fair to Miraz, I ran my review through GPTZero, and it decided there was a 1% probability that I was an AI bot as well. Not sure what 1%, I’ll let you speculate.
Curious though, I went back to the audience reviews, that Google prioritises above all others. The second review was, again according to GPTZero, 100% AI generated. And the third. Fourth, Fifth. Sixth. In fact, one of these talks about a character’s role in the movie concerned when, going spoiler light, let’s just say they didn’t make it to this film in the saga. Yet they’re being discussed as being on screen in the latest Mission: Impossible film when they’re absolutely not. I might gingerly suggest that the reviewer in question, were they human, hadn’t considered watching the film before writing about it.
The seventh review read “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning magnum opus transcends mere denouement; it is an exquisitely crafted elegy to one of the most venerated action oeuvres in contemporary film history.”
I didn’t even run that one through the scanner.
Again, I may be doing people a disservice, and GPTZero may be entirely wrong. I’ve met false positives from it before. But I scrolled down the leading audience reviews Google offered at the top of its search results page, and not one of them struck me as written by a human being.
I know there’s always been a debate about whether film criticism, and writing about film matters. In the TikTok and influencer age, where commentary has been prioritised over criticism, that debate continues. Times change, and whether I like it or not, I do accept that.
However, who is writing – or not writing – these reviews? Who do they serve? And what is Google looking for? The top-ranked audience reviews are universally positive, offer little insight, and I’d suggest in some cases might have got confused regarding plot points from the film they’re supposed to be talking about.
Why, then, are these being rewarded?
Google has a site that offers recommendations to outlets such as this, and it explains that “Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results.”
The first ‘content and quality’ question it thus asks is “Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?”
You can read the site, and the list, here. It begs the question, from my position of vested interest, what’s the point trying to provide original information, reporting, research or analysis, when I could have run some stuff through ChatGPT and be deemed by Google more worthy of a front page spotlight?
This is a microcosm, too. Across websites other than the huge, highly-resourced ones, traffic has dropped due to Google’s promotion of AI results, and algorithm shifts. The public face of Google suggests it is anti-clickbait, and wants material that’s original and helpful. The actions, however, do not match the words.
Have you ever wondered, when you’re looking for a new fridge or something, that it’s grouped together buyers’ guides that get the top results, rather than forensic reviews of individual products? It’s because you get more clicks doing the former. As a result, a whole bunch of more expensive to hire reviewers got laid off, and buyers guide writers brought in.
Back to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and the most prominent written review of it in the world.
From Google’s point of view, it’s giving the impression of being on the back foot, with ChatGPT threatening to usurp its search business, the foundation of its multi-billion dollar empire. It’s responding with all sorts of changes to its calculations and search listings, designed to highlight ‘quality’ material. But, as ever, it’s the gaming of the system that gets you noticed over the quality of your words.
And yeah: I question the value for a reader of an apparently-computer-written review from a two-movie critic being the top result.
I guess I’m left wondering what’s the point of Google listing reviews of films at all. And also: why are we all playing this game? Who is this actually serving, if a computer-generated review by someone who’s only apparently penned one other computer-generated review, is the top-ranked piece of work? Because bluntly, it’s now easier to skip the effort of watching the film, and a few hours writing formulated thoughts. At least then, you save a bit of time, and big tech likes you more.
Websites have gutted their paid staff as they dance around what Google promotes, knowing that a listing on page one of the search results – especially above the ‘fold’ – can be the difference between being able to keep the lights on and not. But what’s the point, if in the end, Google’s lost interest in human beings altogether? It’s an unwinnable game.
Miraz, on the off-chance you’re reading this, no personal ill-will to you, whether you exist or not. If there’s anyone with Google reading this, meanwhile, at the very least you should rewrite your ‘creating helpful content’ documentation to reflect what you’re actually doing.
In the meantime, those trying to do things the proper way, and in this specific example write proper reviews, are facing uncertain futures, having seen so many outlets close down, or be stripped back. We’re left facing the fear of being sold to Valnet, of being penalised for putting in a shift, or of going out of business altogether.
And film reviews? Well, the rate they’re going, they might just self-destruct in five seconds…
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