Users in the UK can enter the title of a movie into the Google search box to find showtimes and reviews.
Google had made the movie search feature available in the US, and now has made it available in the UK as well. By entering a film title, like the recently debuted “The Constant Gardener,” users will see showtimes and venues for it.
The top result on the search page returned from the query contains the name of the film and links to reviews and maps to local theaters. The Reviews link brings up a collection of published reviews, and the visitor can view all reviews, or just positive or negative ones.
Alongside the reviews, Google displays the average “star rating” of those review that use a 1 to 5 star scale. Ever mindful of its long-ago promise to do no evil, Google has taken steps to ensure the safety of this feature, per text displayed at the bottom of the review page:
The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page.
The Reviews page allows the visitor to search within the reviews, perhaps for comments about a star or a director. Frequently mentioned terms appear as hyperlinks for some of those searches, in case typing “Fernando Meirelles” proves too daunting for the typical moviegoer. Finally, at the bottom left of the page, a “Find theaters near you” search box does just that, by letting users query by location.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
