Do you read reviews before viewing?

I base my viewing experience on browsing the reviews at IMBD, which prevents me from seeing a lot of movies.  Pretty much all movies that have been advertised so far this year.  The only exception is V for Vendetta, but chances are I will read pages of reviews once I actually see it.

It saves you time and trouble. My grandmother once told me

"If it drops below a 6, do not see that shits."

IMDB is almost always right in my experience. The only time they get it wrong is when there is a small number of voters or it was only featured in a festival. Festival people are assholes.

I'm seeing Vendetta when it opens and am worried it's going to be shit. I think the fact that they withhold reviews from opening-night moviegoers is very underhanded. If they are that afraid that their movie will flop even before it opens, why bother to release it? It's said that if a movie doesn't do well its first weekend it will never -  all politics, all psychological operations.

I go to rottentomatoes.com every time before I download a new movie. It's not the overall rating per-se that does the trick, but also whether the controversy is interesting.

V for Vendetta will be a poor adaptation of the comic.  I can tell I'll come out of that theater knowing that it could have been awesome if they just hadn't done this or that completely retarded thing.  You know, like changing the government from a democratically elected fascist government to LOL NAZIS.

Yeah, the government has to be the galactic empire now.  Oh well.

I used to, but find reviews end up spoiling way too much stuff. For example after seeing Shopgirl and reading Ebert's review, he gave away enough plot points that I feel the movie would not be enjoyable.

To see a film, all I want to know is if it's shit or not. Things like the RottenTomatoes goodness meter do a fair job of conveying that.

The Da Vinci Code is a shitty movie based on a shitty book by a usually good director and a horrible author.  Fuck Dan Brown.