Another example of how no one should ever look at Rotten Tomatoes for reviews/consensus

dahliaclone

Well-Known Member
Mar 4, 2007
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I cringe when I see anyone talk about how movie X has a Rotten Tomato score of X as if it really means something. It's been absolute garbage for years and has only gotten worse the pasts few years basically letting any Joe be a critic. Now this...

DO NOT USE RT AS A SOURCE TO SAY A MOVIE IS GOOD OR BAD.

 
articlle = TL-DR - cliff notes?
A film PR company has reportedly been paying critics for positive reviews in order to inflate the Rotten Tomatoes scores for certain films. PR company hand-picked/hired critics who were likely to give a positive review to help raise the score; negative reviews were either encouraged to be reconsidered for more positive light, or put on a blog unseen by RT.
 
I cringe when I see anyone talk about how movie X has a Rotten Tomato score of X as if it really means something. It's been absolute garbage for years and has only gotten worse the pasts few years basically letting any Joe be a critic. Now this...

DO NOT USE RT AS A SOURCE TO SAY A MOVIE IS GOOD OR BAD.

I still like it for all the links to the different reviews.
 
I cringe when I see anyone talk about how movie X has a Rotten Tomato score of X as if it really means something. It's been absolute garbage for years and has only gotten worse the pasts few years basically letting any Joe be a critic. Now this...

DO NOT USE RT AS A SOURCE TO SAY A MOVIE IS GOOD OR BAD.


X was ******* hilarious. If you didn't like that movie it's a you problem, not an RT problem.

In general I find RT to be pretty accurate. The movies I find it's most consistently off on are action moves and comedies. RT isn't kind to "enjoyable", low brow shoot em ups nor is it typically favorable to over the top, loud comedies. But on drama and suspense it's a pretty good barometer, especially when there is a consensus between critic and fan.

You are right on the credentials. It doesn't take much to be a "critic". But top critics? Those seem to be vetted, at least a little.

"Touch me Howard..". Hahahaha, me and the GF cackled for days on the images and lines alone.
 
It's hard to find any reviews of any products on the internet that aren't fraught with fraud and payoffs. Current frustration is book reviews where complete garbage self-published sci-fi books on Amazon have all of these inflated star ratings. You have to dig through them to get to legit reviews.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: dirtyninety
RT = Russian Television.

I think the Jar Jar Binks roasting was the most I ever read Rotten Tomatoes back in the day. That was funny stuff.
 
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I use my own ratings system to whether I think a movie is good or not to me. I’ve seen too many movies that critics rave about and walked out thinking it was the most boring movie ever. Flip side I’ve gone to so many movies critics hate and even the public as a whole isn’t big on and love them.
 
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I use my own ratings system to whether I think a movie is good or not to me. I seen too many movies critics rave about and walked out thinking it was the most boring movie ever. Flip side I’ve gone to so many movies critics hate and even the public as a whole isn’t big on and love them.
People obviously use them to decide how to spend their time, I’m not sure your system works very well for that.
 
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  • Disagree
Reactions: matclone and jctisu
I don't take rotten tomatoes as gospel but with so much content I do look at rotten tomatoes and IMDb scores to try and filter out crap. You also need to click into rotten tomatoes and look at both critics and audience scores.
 
Rotten tomato audience score is almost an “opposite” suggestion for me in a lot of cases. The critics rating is a little better but still some head scratchers.

There was a time in the early days of the interwebs that the IMDb top 250 was pretty legit with a lot of people with good taste coupling it but it seems pretty weird these days.
 
People obviously use them to decide how to spend their time, I’m not sure your system works very well for that.
Sure it does. If there’s a movie I am interested in seeing, I go see it. Or I wait for it to come to steaming. It’s a strange concept not following what other people say to decide if you will like it or not when it comes to movies.
 
I give some value to Metacritic, as you can see what critics thought, and what people in general thought. If both like it, it's a pretty sure winner. Overall though, I agree with @jctisu, if I'm interested, I'll watch it either way. Sometimes movies are just mindless entertainment, and sometimes they just strike me better than other people.
 
Sure it does. If there’s a movie I am interested in seeing, I go see it. Or I wait for it to come to steaming. It’s a strange concept not following what other people say to decide if you will like it or not when it comes to movies.
Don't let the snark burn your arm hair off.
 
I'm pretty choosy with my time that I invest in movies. I usually only watch the hits and even then I've missed many.
 
Sure it does. If there’s a movie I am interested in seeing, I go see it. Or I wait for it to come to steaming. It’s a strange concept not following what other people say to decide if you will like it or not when it comes to movies.
Steaming is a good way to describe it.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: jctisu

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