The very excellent criteria that Walter Murch uses when analyzing a cut:
Emotion: 51% Is it true to the emotion of the moment?
Story: 23% Does it advanced the story?
Rhythm: 10% Does it occur at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and “right”?
Eye-Trace: 7% Does it acknowledge eye-trace (the concern with the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame?
Two-dimensional Plane of Screen: 5% Does it respect “planarity” (the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two)?
Three-dimensional Space of Action: 4% Does it respect three-dimensional continuity of the actual space of where people are in the room and in relation to one another?
The only thing that I'd add to this is does it tell you something about the characters or what motivates them? Which I suppose could be a part of 1 or 2.
Having guidelines like this I think are key to making sure that the narrative doesn't go off the rails within the context of a scene and that it remains visually interesting.