Comments on: Rottentomatoes.com is Full of Lies…Sort Of

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:44:53 +0000

I find RT to be a pretty good yardstick of movie worth. However, no reviewer, or amalgam of reviewers, is ever going to match my/your personal standards. I had the same experience with Hellboy II, "merely okay when reviews said it was great." So what? I liked it, just not as much as somebody else said I would, so now it's their fault? Not so much. It can go the other way, too. I enjoyed Hancock even though the reviews said it was crap. And here's the thing: I agreed with everything the bad reviews said about Hancock, but I liked the movie anyway. You can enjoy a clunky movie even as you pick it apart inside your head.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:55:19 +0000

Just wanted to point out that, from what I understood from the piece, he doesn't know that the first "Hellboy" was ALSO directed by Guillermo del Toro.

There's a reason why I don't go to RT.com when I'm shopping for a movie to catch at the theater, and it's the subjective nature out of the whole thing. Perhaps it's a matter of just sticking to one site that caters to the types of movies you might enjoy (CHUD, AICN, JoBlo, etc.) and cross your fingers. In the end it's up to the individual to determine the quality of the movie.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:38:08 +0000

Its not so much that RT is lying to you as it is reviewers.

RT bases their fresh / rotten system on a mathematical formula (as you point out) – now if a bunch of people gave it positive reviews then it is going to give you a positive score, even if its a bad movie.

ie – Indian Jones, the worst one by far, and possibly one of the worst big name movies this year so far got a 76% – why? cause critics bow down to the big duo behind it.

There are ways to cheat the system, don't believe everything you read…

By: Ryan W

Ryan W — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:17:13 +0000

Matt is exactly right. Movies are subjective. I have movies that I love that probably scored in the 30's on Rotten Tomatoes.

You have to evaluate the movie for yourself instead of depending an an aggregator to judge what's good and what sucks. And don't tell me the del Toro directing made you think thiw could be good. Clearly, the visuals were great, which is what you'd expect. But sometimes all a director can do is make a stupid movie look good.

Here's a few tips:
1. Hellboy 2 is a sequel to a crappy movie. Sequels are usually worse than the original, so it proably won't be good.

2. They've promoted this movie so hard that you know the studio thinks it's crappy.

3.It's Hellboy, you morons. Of course it's going to suck. I didn't need to see a picture, a trailer or a review to know that this was going to be terrible.

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:37:07 +0000

Guillermo Del Toro was the director of the first Hellboy as well. It's just that they are really selling the second one with a "look who we got to direct" spin due to the success and acclaim of Pan's Labyrinth. And i feel that its due to this effect that somehow that essentially the same reviews can count in a different way.

By: JJx508

JJx508 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:59:44 +0000

I respect what the writer wrote, but just because he thought the movie was bad doesn't mean that RT is a lying website. It all just comes down to a matter of opinion.

By: Will

Will — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:02:02 +0000

Im gonna disagree with Matt and agree with the writer. When a movie receives consistently good ratings from critics I know that doesn't mean I will like it with any certainty. However, I have yet to find a movie that was critically accepted and praised in which I could not understand what was being praised. I did not find anything worth praising in Hellboy 2 other than the visuals and the fighting and I have never seen another movie received so well on those merits alone before. I think the problem here is that the article writer, like most people including myself, put too much stake in a high rotten tomatoes score. I also will be wary from now on of scores on that site because of my experience with hellboy 2. Never before have I felt so deceived by critics either.

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:55:13 +0000

The title says kind of – We at COEDmagazine.com are actually big fans of rottentomatoes, but we stand behind Marc's personal opinion- this is a blog and Marc's points are valid to Marc's personal argument.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:41:29 +0000

So because you disagree with one subjective percentage based on hundreds of subjective reviews, Rotten Tomatoes is now lying?

It's movie reviews, dude.