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[Staccat0]

RT is as close as you get. You can break it down to overall rating, top critics rating, average score within both overall and top critics, average score vs. viewer score, and that's before you get into the comparisons within genre/series.

So far as I can tell, it's not really that easy to do anything as comparable with Metacritic.

The problem is that with both Metacritic and RT, people just look for the number to the left of the percent sign, and that's it. And that's a thing the industry has been complicit in promoting because it makes things way more simplified. You can just slap a number on a box cover and you're good. Free marketing, basically. Same w/ box-office numbers.

The problem is that Rotten Tomatoes isn't really a site to determine if a movie is good or not, although it's that: It should be a site for readers to determine which critics to pay attention to.

But nobody wants to fuckin' read, so it doesn't get used that way.

Exaaaaaactly how I feel. Thank you.

 

[louiedog]

I always get Ratner and McG confused, but it doesn't matter because it saves me from watching two shitty directors.

I saw McG and the cast of Terminator Salvation at a panel the year that movie came out and he brought up the lead actress being topless in a really gross, douchey fashion that really made himself seem like a shitty guy hitting on a girl at a bar. She sort of laughed it off and played nice like she was supposed to but didn't seem to appreciate it.

I didn't think it was possible to lose more respect than the small base level you'd have for a guy who calls himself McG, but there it went.

 

[cartographer]

People put way too much value in it, that's true. I doubt that financial success is a better metric thought.

Well, "better" here is sort of impossible to answer because they don't measure the same thing (and don't pretend to).

All BO numbers can do is tell you how much money was made. All the Tomatometer can tell you is the percentage of favorable reviews.

There's certainly data to extrapolate some trends from those metrics, but any issues or analysis with that aren't issues with the actual metrics.

 

[MarveI]

Of course Marvel would love RT considering they have been kind to you, i bet you get your dad, Disney pay for your grades don't you Marvel.

Awww

 

[kswiston]

I'll go ahead and say OK, there MUST be some people out there that base their viewing habits on reviews..I just think you guys are a bit off on just how much those % influence the average movie goer as opposed to friends, co-workers and family.

There are most definitely films that are hurt by reviews. We see it every year in which "prestige" films get a wide release and which ones are sent to die with next to no marketing in roughly whatever number of theatres are required to meet contractual obligations.

Blockbuster action films are not in that category.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Remember when it was implied that BvS may be "too smart" for some audiences due to its deeper and more serious themes?

Then Lex Luthor left pee on a desk then made a monster out of his DNA and an alien corpse, Batman hit Superman with a toilet and they stopped fighting because they both had a mother named Martha.

Middle America is too stupid to tango with the philosophical beast of a film that this was

The worst part about this is that there were still people saying that the movie was too smart for some people after it came out and everyone saw it.

 

[Rumblebones]

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with Ratner.

 

[dlauv]

It's kind of lame, because people simply don't read it correctly. But I think for movies it works better than metacritic, because when it comes down to it, it's about whether you recommend spending 2 hours and 30 bucks to see a film at a theater or not, rather than 60 bucks on an interactive experience concerning, in part, broadly, ergonomics.

The level of engagement simply doesn't ~usually~ require poring over so much minutiae.

 

[ZeoVGM]

I think RT is very handy. It generally falls in line with how the public reacts to a movie as well. It is a general "thumbs up/thumbs down" type of system.

I prefer it over Metacritic which at times is very off from how the public reacts. I believe Age of Ultron is something like 67% on Metacritic while the original Avengers is 69%. Clearly, that's not how regular movie goers (or critics) view those movies.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

It's a pretty decent debate you could have over whether Rotten Tomatoes or Brett Ratner has done more harm to the culture of film.

savage

 

[LionPride]

The worst part about this is that there were still people saying that the movie was too smart for some people after it came out and everyone saw it.

*cough* Bleepey *cough*

 

[Speevy]

Use Rottentomatoes like this.

Like a thermometer of "Should I be interested in this?" You figure out which temperature suits you.

Then go over to Metacritic and check the reviews to check the quality of it.

Then read an actual review and decide what kind of movie it is, and if you might like it.

There. Money saved or well spent.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

27% with a Average Rating: 4.9/10. That seems reasonable to me. (and perhaps actually read some of those reviews?)

 

[Lima]

Use Rottentomatoes like this.

Like a thermometer of "Should I be interested in this?" You figure out which temperature suits you.

Then go over to Metacritic and check the reviews to check the quality of it.

Then read an actual review and decide what kind of movie it is, and if you might like it.

There. Money saved or well spent.

But you don't need to even leave RT for this. That information is all presented there and with more reviews and better filters(top critics etc.)

Meta is just shit.

 

[Strangelove77]

The worst part about this is that there were still people saying that the movie was too smart for some people after it came out and everyone saw it.

It's so sad.

 

[The Giant]

He's right. Both rotten tomatoes and metacritic are both pointless. There are tons of movies that the critics hated but the general public likes it.

Can you imagine if rotten tomatoes was around when John Carpenter's The Thing was released. The movie critics at the time hated the movie so much. It would have been rated at 25% on rotten tomatoes.

 

[ghostjoke]

RT is really useful when used correctly. The number actually means something unlike Metacritic. It doesn't try to surmise quality, just that X% of critics gave it a positive review. High numbers normally means a film has wide reach, but middling films shouldn't written off entirely either if you're into a certain genre or style. Coupled with some light reading from critics you trust, it's a great resource. Of course, a lot of people use it incorrectly, but Brett Ratner's continued career would suggest that RT is not some be all, end all of the industry.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Nahh.. Metacritics weighing system sucks + they assign scores to scoreless reviews.

EDIT: For movies anyways.

Better that flawed system than a movie which everyone like just a little getting 100% fresh.

 

[poppabk]

He isn't wrong about people misinterpreting RT scores and that it can be a detriment to films that are highly polarizing or niche genres. He's wrong about BvS being judged as poor based on the RT scoring system, it has poor scores no matter how you look at it.

 

[kswiston]

Better that flawed system than a movie which everyone like just a little getting 100% fresh.

Nah. You just don't understand what the 100% actually means.

Not to mention that nothing gets a 100% average on RT overall, unless you are counting foreign or limited release films with next to no reviews. There are always a couple of people who disagree with the concensus.

 

[Future]

I actually think rotten tomatoes is an excellent indicator for me at least. Movies in the 50% range usually have elements you can tell are polarizing. Movies in the 70 plus usually have stories with good flow. Hit the 20s and something is usually glaringly wrong.

It doesn't guarantee whether you will like something. There are some bad movies out there that are fun watches. And some well put together movies that just aren't enjoyable to watch. If he's sad that there is a cloud over superman due to that score....well good. Movie sucked and everyone knows it. Still was successful because people liked superman and batman enough to watch it anyway

 

[jtb]

I think RT has a far better metric than Metacritic. But I don't disagree with Ratner's thesis: quantifying reviews is dumb and counterproductive.

But we gotta get them clicks, I guess.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

He is bringing up the success of BvS... didn't it underperform?

It underperformed relative to its budget, but making over $800 million at the box office is still pretty impressive.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Nah. You just don't understand what the 100% actually means.

Not to mention that nothing gets a 100% average on RT overall, unless you are counting foreign or limited release films with next to no reviews. There are always a couple of people who disagree with the concensus.

I understand perfectly well what it means, but it's useless outside of a binary "see this or not" sense.

Metacritic gives me a much better sense of where a movie is, just by looking at the spread of scores and the average.

 

[Tall4Life]

I dont understand some of your arguments about niche movies suffering more because of RT. Those movies have the svore they do because critics liked or didn't like them. If they like it more it'll have a higher RT. If it was just a review score aggregate it would be 5.5/10 or something, what's the difference? It's not like critics only started "niche" movies now.

 

[ramparter]

"Damn you people, getting informed instead of just watching every crap we release"

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Metacritic gives me a much better sense of where a movie is, just by looking at the spread of scores and the average.

RT does all the things Metacritic does, but without obfuscating their work. RT at least shows it, provides links back, and keeps it in a larger, easier to examine context.

Metacritic fogs shit up for no real reason.

Just because the gaming industry saw fit (for whatever reason) to fully incorporate it into aspects of its business practices doesn't mean it somehow works better as a review aggregator. That speaks more to the sometimes (very) questionable decision-making by managers/execs at publishers.

 

[Eidan]

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thor_the_dark_world/

66%

Well, Thor: The Dark World is a much better movie than BvS and Suicide Squad.

 

[Kaiser Swayze]

I think it's funny that he feels that the amount of work that went into a movie should be considered in how the public regards it. I don't think there are many shitty movies out there that someone didn't bust their ass over, unless maybe once you get to the bottom of the barrel Asylum rip-off stuff. And even then, they might be working harder since they don't have money to throw at every problem.

 

[Ridley327]

He's right. Both rotten tomatoes and metacritic are both pointless. There are tons of movies that the critics hated but the general public likes it.

Can you imagine if rotten tomatoes was around when John Carpenter's The Thing was released. The movie critics at the time hated the movie so much. It would have been rated at 25% on rotten tomatoes.

I don't think it would have made much of a difference if RT was around back then, since the film flopped just as hard without it. Even if it got the acclaim that it enjoys nowadays, it still was releasing a week after ET: The Extraterrestrial.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

RT does all the things Metacritic does, but without obfuscating their work. RT at least shows it, provides links back, and keeps it in a larger, easier to examine context.

Metacritic fogs shit up for no real reason.

Just because the gaming industry saw fit (for whatever reason) to fully incorporate it into aspects of its business practices doesn't mean it somehow works better as a review aggregator. That speaks more to the sometimes (very) questionable decision-making by managers/execs at publishers.

I have no idea what you mean. MC links back to reviews. MC sorts them, so I can see if it's a swath of "65%" scores or a range of 90 all the way down to 20, and about how many of each.

For example, this page tells me what I need to know about Logan:
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/logan-2017/critic-reviews

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I have no idea what you mean. MC links back to reviews. MC sorts them, so I can see if it's a swath of "65%" scores or a range of 90 all the way down to 20, and about how many of each.

RT does all the same shit.

Without having to wonder whether or not the scores you're looking at are more or less made up by the people at Metacritic who are guessing at what the score should be based on the review they're reading.

Which is a thing Metacritic does.

On top of artifically assigning different weights to different outlets based on...

...something.

 

[kswiston]

RT does all the things Metacritic does, but without obfuscating their work. RT at least shows it, provides links back, and keeps it in a larger, easier to examine context.

Metacritic fogs shit up for no real reason.

Just because the gaming industry saw fit (for whatever reason) to fully incorporate it into aspects of its business practices doesn't mean it somehow works better as a review aggregator. That speaks more to the sometimes (very) questionable decision-making by managers/execs at publishers.

Metacritic fully admits in their FAQs that they just make up scores for scoreless reviews as well:

http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item16

I READ MANOHLA DARGIS' REVIEW OF [MOVIE NAME] AND I SWEAR IT SOUNDED LIKE A 90... WHY DID YOU SAY SHE GAVE IT AN 80?

Many critics include some sort of grade for the movie, album, TV show, or game they are reviewing, whether it is on a 5-star scale, a 100-point scale, a letter grade, or other mark. However, plenty of other reviewers choose not to do this. Hey, that's great... they want you to actually read their review rather than just glance at a number. (Personally, we at Metacritic like to read reviews, which is one of the reasons we include a link to every full review on our site....we want you to read them too!)

However, this does pose a problem for our METASCORE computations, which are based on numbers, not qualitative concepts like art and emotions. (If only all of life were like that!) Thus, our staff must assign a numeric score, from 0-100, to each review that is not already scored by the critic. Naturally, there is some discretion involved here, and there will be times when you disagree with the score we assigned. However, our staffers have read a lot of reviews--and we mean a lot--and thus through experience are able to maintain consistency both from film to film and from reviewer to reviewer. When you read over 200 reviews from Manohla Dargis, you begin to develop a decent idea about when she's indicating a 90 and when she's indicating an 80.

Note, however, that our staff will not attempt to assign super-exact scores like 87 or 43, as doing so would be impossible. Typically, we will work in increments of 10 (so a good review will get a 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100), although in some instances we may also fall halfway in-between (such as a 75).

So you have a system (that already restricts its aggregate score to a pretty small group of publications and websites) just making up scores for a chunk of them because they have read a lot of reviews and know best.

All of us have been alive and on the internet long enough to know that people are biased and have a difficult time keeping their biases out of their work. The last decade plus of news reporting also shows how easy it is to read what you want to see in stated opinions, reports, etc. I don't care how many reviews metacritic employee has read, their personal experience and opinions are going to color their read on someone else's review.

On top of that, different reviews are weighted differently in the overall metascore.



Compare that to Rotten Tomatoes method:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQu..._decides_whether_a_review_is_fresh_or_not_on/

It depends on whether the critic is submitting their own review or if the RT staff adds it.
Some critics (about half) add their own reviews to the site, and they mark them Fresh or Rotten themselves.

For the reviews that the Rotten Tomatoes' staff finds and adds the Fresh/Rotten determination happens one of two ways:

Sometimes a critic has previously set a rating threshold (i.e. anything that is 3.5/5 stars or above should be marked Fresh) so the staff will use that as a direction. Keep in mind that 3.5/5 stars may mean Rotten to another critic; different critics have different tipping points.

When a critic doesn't use a score and doesn't submit their own reviews (this happens with Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, for example), then the Rotten Tomatoes team will read the review and make a determination. And frequently the RT staff will check with a critic on a borderline review to make sure that it's marked correctly.

Source: I'm the Editor in Chief of Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics get to decide what is or isn't a fresh rating. When they choose not to, the RT staff often tries to check in with them. Even if there are still some cases where they have to make judgement calls between "fresh" or "rotten", they typically have 100-350 reviews for a wide release, not 25-50.

Scoreless reviews are also not just lumped into the review average with arbitrary assigned values.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

People do put more emphasis on these scores nowadays then people did in the times of written reviews i think. Guess all the moves i liked as a kid/ teenager would be considered to be in this 25%-30% range, their (retrofitted RT score out of my arse) did not harm my enjoyment of them in any way.

I myself changed to, I value my time more now and try to only watch movies or play games with high RT/MC scores. But that way, Im sure I pass on some stuff I would enjoy if I took the time for them.

 

[Fbh]

If he thinks that about movies he would probably quit after 2 days in the gaming market.
Movie audiences care about reviews too, but you don't see people going apeshit crazy because a movie went from a 98 rotten tomato score to a 97

I actually really like RT system. It focused more on wether people liked the movie or not than the actual score it was given.
I think it would be cool to have something like that for games.

 

[Temp_User]

All this throwback publicity to BvS is only reminding people to avoid or at the very least be apprehensive to DCEU movies.

Stop rationalizing that turd. Just give us that Justice League trailer and whatever new cool thing the Wonder Woman movie is going to be.

 

[caliph95]

If he thinks that about movies he would probably quit after 2 days in the gaming market.
Movie audiences care about reviews too, but you don't see people going apeshit crazy because a movie went from a 98 rotten tomato score to a 97

Most people will just complain about critics and watch the movies or be indifferent. Game reviews will cause attacks, dos attacks and stupid ign memes plus getting pissoff if the score is a point off

 

[Erasus]

You need to look at more than the RT or IMDB scores. As the article says, I have liked movies that are rated at 30-40%.

 

[kswiston]

People do put more emphasis on these scores nowadays then people did in the times of written reviews i think. Guess all the moves i liked as a kid/ teenager would be considered to be in this 25%-30% range, their (retrofitted RT score out of my arse) did not harm my enjoyment of them in any way.

I myself changed to, I value my time more now and try to only watch movies or play games with high RT/MC scores. But that way, Im sure I pass on some stuff I would enjoy if I took the time for them.

Scores and thumbs up/down verdicts have always had a lot of weight put on them. At least they have for the past 25 years or so that I have paid attention to these things. The only difference is that you were typically restricted to Siskel and Ebert and a few newspaper/magazines that you happened to buy. Maybe one of those Leonard Maltin review digest books that came out periodically for older films.

Now there are a ton of reviews. People don't have time to read 100 opinion on a film, so they use the aggregators. You should probably still find a critic or two who has similar tastes though.

 

[InaudibleWhispa]

I've always found RT to be a great indicator of whether a movie is worth my time. I just don't look at the score as an indicator of quality, rather a percentage chance of whether I'll like it or not. So a movie with 50% means there's a 50% chance I'll like it. It does not mean it's an average 5/10 movie, it might be love/hate.

 

[kswiston]

I've always found RT to be a great indicator of whether a movie is worth my time. I just don't look at the score as an indicator of quality, rather a percentage chance of whether I'll like it or not. So a movie with 50% means there's a 50% chance I'll like it. It does not mean it's an average 5/10 movie, it might be love/hate.

Pretty much. I don't know if I would take it as a straight percentage. I have been lukewarm on more than 20% of the 80+ tomatometer blockbusters that I have seen in recent years. But typically I will like a lot more films in that range than I will in the 30-50% range.

If I REALLY wanted to see a film that ended up getting poor reviews, I will sometimes still go. If I was on the fence, I will skip it. There's always Netflix if a film was misunderstood in its time.

 

[Carnby]

I never rely on Rotten Tomatoes. Heck, one of my favorite horror movies has a 0% on RT.

Spoiler

I Spit on Your Grave 2

 

[Swig_]

I feel like there's a level of groupthink involved with RT. It's like when Get Out came out and had 100% for a while, then a critic gave a poor review, people were angry about it. It's supposed to be an aggregate of reviews from people with different opinions. I saw Get Out and while I enjoyed it, it's far from the best movie I've ever seen and not even the best horror or horror/comedy I've seen. Get Out is from from a 100% movie, but people were furious that someone "ruined" it's perfect score.

The same goes for bad movies. I feel like many movies get bad reviews because people love to hate things that everyone else hates. I think it skews people's opinions. I know it does. I've been interested in movies before, then a saw a "low" RT rating and thought to myself "maybe I'll skip it or pick it up when it's in Red Box".

 

[kswiston]

I feel like there's a level of groupthink involved with RT. It's like when Get Out came out and had 100% for a while, then a critic gave a poor review, people were angry about it. It's supposed to be an aggregate of reviews from people with different opinions. I saw Get Out and while I enjoyed it, it's far from the best movie I've ever seen and not even the best horror or horror/comedy I've seen. Get Out is from from a 100% movie, but people were furious that someone "ruined" it's perfect score.

The same goes for bad movies. I feel like many movies get bad reviews because people love to hate things that everyone else hates. I think it skews people's opinions. I know it does. I've been interested in movies before, then a saw a "low" RT rating and thought to myself "maybe I'll skip it or pick it up when it's in Red Box".

People got angry at the Get Out situation, because the reviewer who "ruined" the score is a professional troll.

If it had 1-2 legitimate Rotten reviews, no one would have cared beyond losing the minor novelty of a 100% score.

 

[Dalek]

I feel like there's a level of groupthink involved with RT. It's like when Get Out came out and had 100% for a while, then a critic gave a poor review, people were angry about it. It's supposed to be an aggregate of reviews from people with different opinions. I saw Get Out and while I enjoyed it, it's far from the best movie I've ever seen and not even the best horror or horror/comedy I've seen. Get Out is from from a 100% movie, but people were furious that someone "ruined" it's perfect score.

The same goes for bad movies. I feel like many movies get bad reviews because people love to hate things that everyone else hates. I think it skews people's opinions. I know it does. I've been interested in movies before, then a saw a "low" RT rating and thought to myself "maybe I'll skip it or pick it up when it's in Red Box".

Never heard of Armond White, eh?

 

[-griffy-]

I feel like there's a level of groupthink involved with RT. It's like when Get Out came out and had 100% for a while, then a critic gave a poor review, people were angry about it. It's supposed to be an aggregate of reviews from people with different opinions. I saw Get Out and while I enjoyed it, it's far from the best movie I've ever seen and not even the best horror or horror/comedy I've seen. Get Out is from from a 100% movie, but people were furious that someone "ruined" it's perfect score.

The same goes for bad movies. I feel like many movies get bad reviews because people love to hate things that everyone else hates. I think it skews people's opinions. I know it does. I've been interested in movies before, then a saw a "low" RT rating and thought to myself "maybe I'll skip it or pick it up when it's in Red Box".

But the 100% rating of Get Out didn't mean it's a 100% perfect movie, it meant 100% of critics liked the movie. The average rating is 8.3/10.

 

[Swig_]

People got angry at the Get Out situation, because the reviewer who "ruined" the score is a professional troll.

If it had 1-2 legitimate Rotten reviews, no one would have cared beyond losing the novelty of a 100% score.

The point is, that it's not a 100% movie. It didn't deserve that high of a score. Yet people were angry about it. Right now it's at 99%. Is it really that much better than other great movies who score from 80% and up? In my opinion, no. That's where I think the problem lies.

 

[Swig_]

Never heard of Armond White, eh?

I know that the guy is a troll. The point is that it's not as amazing as a movie as people, including critics make it out to be. It's a good movie, but better than almost every other movie ever made? There's a very small list of movies with a 100% of 99% RT score. I think that rating is a little higher than it should be and groupthink and the RT culture is the reason it's so high.

 

[BigBeauford]

Too bad there isn't a rotten tomatoes score for presidents. Then us middle Americans would have done the right thing.

 

[caliph95]

The point is, that it's not a 100% movie. It didn't deserve that high of a score. Yet people were angry about it. Right now it's at 99%. Is it really that much better than other great movies who score from 80% and up? In my opinion, no. That's where I think the problem lies.

Again that's not what 100% means, it doesn't mean they thought it was the best movie of all time just no one hated or dislike enough to give it rotten.Also it's nowhere as bad as the gaming side will be for movie fans it will be a thread than people will go on. Unless its Armond.
edit: also just checked movies like Boyhood and old classics have around or lower tomato score than boyhood but have higher averages.