The reviews are out for the highly anticipated Suicide Squad, the newest addition to Warner Bros’ growing DC Extended Universe, and they aren’t pretty. While the film has claimed the highest opening weekend in the month of August, critics and general audiences don’t seem at all impressed by Squad. So far, the DCEU is making money but hasn’t connected with many outside of DC fandom. It’s gotten to where it’s drawing comparisons to Michael Bay’s Transformers films - they make money but could use help as far as quality.
So, who’s to blame for the terrible reviews? This has to be someone’s fault. Perhaps the people who are actually making the product being fed to audiences? Warner Bros? Zack Snyder? David Ayer? Not so fast. It's clearly Rotten Tomatoes' fault. After all it was them that gave Squad and Batman v Superman such low scores on their site.
Or did they?
There’s this old quote from author Eva Le Gallienne - “People hate what they don’t understand and try to destroy it”.
This actually explains the hate towards Rotten Tomatoes - most people just don’t understand it or how it works. The idea seems to be someone from RT goes to a screening of a movie, reviews it and gives it a percentage from 1 to 100. If that’s what you think, you’ve got RT all wrong. Here’s how it really works…
RT is what’s called an "aggregator". An aggregator is “a website or program that collects related items of content and displays them or links to them”. In this case, reviews for film and television. RT collects the reviews and displays them. It DOES NOT review films. So what does the percentage mean?
You may have been interpreting the Tomatometer all wrong.
RT uses a Fresh/Rotten system. In other words, "Thumbs up/Thumbs down”. The percentage is the number of critics who give a film a “Fresh” or “Thumbs Up”. For example, out of 100 reviews, 65% of critics give a film a Fresh rating. RT's Tomatometer asks if the critic liked it or not instead of what did they think about it. There’s no gray area. That’s why the site provides links - so people have access to the actual reviews. Reviews by critics from Rolling Stone, Variety, the LA Times and tons more. The critics DO NOT WORK FOR ROTTEN TOMATOES.
Imagine if schools started handing out Pass and Fail on report cards instead of letter grades. One student’s report card could say he passed 94% of his classes. So everyone is saying “He got a 94%”. But when you look into the actual grades, he received a bunch of C’s and D’s.
The original Thor’s Tomatometer score is 77%. But look at a system like Metascore, for example, a system that asks how the critics feel about the movie, and the film gets a 57/100. The Avengers sits at a 92% Fresh score but earned a 62/100 with Metascore. And there are plenty of critics with their own rating system, be it 5 stars, a 1 to 10 scale or an actual letter grade. RT’s system doesn’t take this into account. Like I said, it’s Pass/Fail. Like/Dislike. Fresh/Rotten.
IN CLOSING
Hopefully this educates some of the fans spitting venom at Rotten Tomatoes, although, I know better than to expect there to be any significant change. I don’t believe everyone will suddenly get how the site actually works. Just as you wouldn’t blame a report card for giving you a C- in Geometry, don’t blame RT for a negative review of a film you really like. Your beef is with the critic. And while we’re on that…
Honestly, why do any of these DC (or Marvel) Extremists care what the critics are saying? All that matters is if you enjoyed the film. It’s pointless to attack critics or other fans for not enjoying something as much as you did. “I don’t care what they think”, you may respond. Well, “f*ck the critics” says you do care. Passionately.
The truth is, the business these studios are in, their product has to appeal to a number of demographics in order to make money, not just “the fans”. Professional critics watch these films as part of the General Audience. They watch them differently than the audiences who know who the New Gods and Miles Morales are. You may try to justify something by saying “Well, in the comics…” but, more often than not, critics and GA’s don’t read comics.
It’s a movie to them, telling a story, and that’s how they’ll judge it. It may be the most comic accurate film ever but if it comes up short as a movie, you’re going to hear about it. Getting salty because people aren’t praising a movie the way you are (or want them to) will just end up with you being even more salty.
If you love the DCEU so far, that’s great. If you’ve found others who feel the same, fantastic. If you’re trying to convince detractors these are complex masterpieces, save yourself some grief. I love Step Up 2: the Streets but I don’t go around trying to convince everyone how brilliant it is. I know it’s teen fluff. Just because you really love something doesn’t make it great.
Post credit scene shows her in bed, nursing a serious cold.
“Well, if I shouldn’t get angry at the critics or the people picking apart my film, who should I get angry at?” How about stop caring about them? Forget about petitions and conspiracy theories about studios paying critics to give movies negative reviews. Instead, put that effort to better use and pop in your favorite comic book movie while you're at it. You know you want to.
Thanks for reading, guys, and sound off below!