Jamelle Bouie, the chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine, saw “Batman vs. Superman” and took to Twitter soon after, sending a flurry of messages to his followers containing his thoughts on the film. According to Bouie, the film was formless and banal, a piece almost devoid of any semblance of story structure or metaphorical significance. He didn’t think director Zack Snyder was even attempting to make more than a placeholder for eventual sequels to come.

It was a searing, biting critique that provoked both intellectual and petty discussion over the course of almost 100 mentions. It culminated in a few spirited discussions, as well as a few retweets, a symbolic co-sign of another person’s opinion. The most compelling part of this entire exchange is that Bouie happens to be a prolific, recognizable writer — but he is not a film critic. He is a political writer who happens to be deeply knowledgeable and passionate about the cinematic medium and its developments. Such is the state of criticism when filtered through a social media lens: everyone’s a critic, and everyone has a chance to reason with, deliberate alongside or kill idols, discipline notwithstanding.

Criticism on Twitter has taken on the guise of a bipartisan, egalitarian landscape for anyone and everyone who has a voice and the slightest bit of intellectual acumen. While it does harbor its fair share of trolls and contrarians, it has also precipitated an open forum for interdisciplinary and intellectual conversations to occur. These conversations between like-minded individuals would not have occurred otherwise, let alone been published in the pages of a magazine or a newspaper. This is especially true in the realm of film criticism on Twitter. Critics of high esteem strip themselves of the auspices of their position, leaving only the person behind the profession, complete with opinions, passions and nuances.

Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly and Vulture tweets cogent, succinct reviews of films he’s seen, delivering insight on performance, screenwriting and cinematography. But he is also an awards show junkie, shedding light on the politics that goes into the voting process behind the selections by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Academy Awards. In the midst of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, Harris’ insight could not have been more illuminating, or more necessary.

Vulture’s Matt Zoller Seitz eschews much of the standard micro-criticism that Twitter lends itself to in favor of dispelling or supporting different tropes inherent to the film industry. To hear a renowned, erudite critic such as Zoller Seitz speak on hallowed tropes like the fan theory is as fascinating as it is honest.

He is also an unforgiving realist; in one “tweet storm” he hit back at the common grievance among filmgoers that movie stars occasionally endure poor scripts and filmmaking in exchange for a paycheck. Seitz framed this dismay in layman’s terms: that acting is a job; whether one likes what they’re doing or not, at some point or another money talks. It was a transparent, authentic missive from an industry insider, speaking to a constituency that wanted to listen, almost as much as it wanted to talk back.

Email Bradley Alsop at [email protected].