‘Marshall’ too formulaic? We aren’t amused

It’s not as if I begrudge USA Today film critic Claudia Puig’s right to have an opinion, no matter how ridiculous I might think that opinion is. I do, though, have a problem with the way she expresses it.

OK, I know. A guy who writes for The Spokesman-Review , which circulates to less than 100,000 people in the Inland Northwest, has some gall to criticize a writer for a newspaper that has readers nationwide. It’s not as if my own credentials are so pristine.

But here’s my point: I speak for myself. I don’t pretend to speak for anyone else. Puig, though? Here’s a line from her review of “We Are Marshall” : “… (I)ts use of trite ‘Win one for the Gipper’ dialogue, overbearing soaring music and conventional plot devices makes it far too formulaic to truly move us.”

Trite? Check. Soaring music? Check. Formulaic? Check. No question.

I’m not sure that I agree that the result is overbearing, though, and I’m not all that convinced that the plot devices are any more “conventional” than “Invincible,” a movie that Puig cites as a better “inspirational football movie.”

But those are things about which we can agree to disagree. I thought the movie was every bit as good as “Invincible” or even another sports-cliché film to which it seemed far more similar: “Glory Road.” So it goes.

What I dislike about Puig’s writing style, other than the fact that she makes no effort at all to do anything but pass on a thumb’s-up/thumb’s-down style of opinion (as opposed to, say, New Yorker critic Anthony Lane, who is always using the language to entertain as well as elucidate), she has the audacity to use the royal “we.”

“We Are Marshall” is “too formulaic to truly move us”?

“Us”? Oh, please. Own your own opinions. And don’t try to speak for me.

Us, too.