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Critics and Fans Have Never Disagreed More About Movies (bloomberg.com) 223

Fans think 2022 has been one of the best years for blockbusters this century. Critics think it's been one of the worst. From a report: When Sony released its film adaptation of the video game "Uncharted" in February, critics were quick to tear it apart. The Wall Street Journal called it "bloodless, heartless, joyless, sexless and, with one exception, charmless." New York Magazine deemed it "curiously empty." MovieFreak.com dismissed it as "a bona fide disaster." And yet, audiences ate it up. The movie, which stars Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, opened to $44.2 million at the domestic box office and went on to gross $401.8 million worldwide. It is one of the 10 highest-grossing movies of the year. "Uncharted" also initiated one of the biggest disputes between critics and fans in modern movie history. Audiences have given higher scores than critics to all 10 of the year's biggest movies. The average audience rating for "Jurassic World Dominion" on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb is a 67. The average critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic is 34. That is a difference of 33 points. "Jurassic World Dominion" is one of three movies (along with "Uncharted" and "The Gray Man") where audiences and critics disagree by more than 30 points.

It may seem as though critics typically pan the year's biggest hits. But that is not the case. While audiences do tend to give blockbusters a higher score than critics, the average gap in their ratings is usually around 5 points. There has been at least one year where critics gave the biggest movies higher ratings than audiences. And there have been many years where the difference is negligible. In 2022? It is not so much a gap as a chasm. Audiences have given the top 10 movies an average score more than 19 points higher than critics, by far the biggest difference this century. The only two of the year's 10 biggest movies where audiences and critics are even close are "Top Gun: Maverick" and "The Batman."

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Critics and Fans Have Never Disagreed More About Movies

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  • Clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blackomegax ( 807080 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:22PM (#62833175) Journal
    Due to the economics of clickbait, view-driven ad revenue, etc, "critics" MUST be overly divisive and negative towards IP that consumers love. It drives engagement and gets them paid.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's review bombing. Anything vaguely "woke" gets hit with a lot of negative consumer reviews, but the critics, who are just normal people and not part of some culture war, evaluate the movie in its merits.

      The opposite happens too. Crap movies that fit the a certain anti-woke ideal get a food of positive user reviews, but the critics rightly pan it.

      Best thing to do is find a reviewer whose tastes match your own. Moviebob is my preferred critic.

      • Re:Clickbait (Score:5, Interesting)

        by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:47PM (#62833273)

        It's review bombing. Anything vaguely "woke" gets hit with a lot of negative consumer reviews, but the critics, who are just normal people and not part of some culture war, evaluate the movie in its merits.

        The opposite happens too. Crap movies that fit the a certain anti-woke ideal get a food of positive user reviews, but the critics rightly pan it.

        Best thing to do is find a reviewer whose tastes match your own. Moviebob is my preferred critic.

        Certainly there is an element of review bombing but that doesn't explain box office results.
        If the professional critics say it's awful but the money rolls in then people obviously find it entertaining, for whatever reason.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Which box office results in particular?

          The best example is The Last Jedi. Heavily review bombed, but polls of people leaving theatres were very positive and it made a lot of money. Critics were generally quite positive about it, but if you read the IMDB user reviews you'd think it was worse than Plan 9.

          More recently you have Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Mostly positive, but one episode that had a non-binary character, whose non-binary-ness wasn't even a part of the plot and never actually mentioned on scre

          • Re:Clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)

            by urbanriot ( 924981 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @02:17PM (#62833415)

            The best example is The Last Jedi. Heavily review bombed, but polls of people leaving theatres were very positive and it made a lot of money.

            I don't know if that's a good example; The movie was a box office success and I even paid to see it in theatres but everyone I was with universally agreed that it was terrible. I don't personally know anyone who thought it was good.

            • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I liked it a lot. The throne room scene is the best light sabre fight ever filmed, and it was a great story for Luke and Rey.

              Set the trilogy up for a great ending, and then they ruined it trying to pander to internet commentators.

              • by nagora ( 177841 )

                I liked it a lot. The throne room scene is the best light sabre fight ever filmed, and it was a great story for Luke and Rey.

                Well, Mary-Sue-Rey mainly. Luke was basically wiped out as a character.

                • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Heard that before but compared to Luke...

                  Given the age of the actors, making Luke a Jedi fighting the First Order would have ended as either CGI Yoda, or edited to hide the fact fact that it's obviously a stunt man like it was in The Mandalorian.

                  Instead they gave him a redemption arc that explained the big gap and how the First Order was able to rise to power.

              • Re:Clickbait (Score:5, Interesting)

                by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @05:26PM (#62834223) Homepage Journal

                > The throne room scene is the best light sabre fight ever filmed, and it was a great story for Luke and Rey.

                Um, citation needed. It was a terrible light-saber fight. I've seen better fights choreographed by 8-year-old with plastic light sabers. It was specifically designed to look flashy without actually having anything flashy in it, compared to, say the fight in "The Phantom Menace", which despite its excesses, showed an amazing amount of skill and training by its actors, especially Ray Park. The "Phantom Menace" fight was more like the fights in the first season of Daredevil. "The Last Jedi" fight was more like the fight in the first episode of "She-Hulk".

                The throne room fight is just a bunch of people swinging their weapons around with any apparent intent to actually connect. Everyone is swinging wildly off target, and standing around waiting to attack the heroes one at a time, instead of actually ganging up on them.

                Also, how was it a great story for Luke? He hates life, abandons his friends after trying to murder his nephew in cold blood, makes an interesting-looking but hollow and ineffective showing via Force Skype, and then dies for no reason.

                And, how was it a great story for Rey? She starts out perfect and never has a challenge, never has to rise up after a defeat, and never has to learn anything!

                "The Last Jedi" is, IMO, one of the stupidest and most poorly-written movies I've ever seen.

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Here's a review of it by Jill Bearup, who is a stage fight practitioner. Her channel is worth following, she does breakdowns of various on-screen fights, and of the armour the costume designers come up with.

                  https://youtu.be/HFglBgPpQUs [youtu.be]

                  Anyway, the fight in Last Jedi is well choreographed. The viewer has just been hit with a huge plot twist, and has no idea where it's going. Anyone could win that fight. The camera work and sequencing allow the viewer to follow the action, none of this fast cutting crap. The a

            • I thought it was good, all my friends with me thought it was good. The only people I know who panned it were slashdot users. Slashdot really is a bubble that's out of sync with the rest of the world.

            • I don't know what the parent poster is talking about. It was a bad movie overall. I went to see it because I'd seen all the rest before (even though some were not great). It earned at the box office solely because of the brand, not because it was good.
          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by magzteel ( 5013587 )

            Which box office results in particular?

            The best example is The Last Jedi. Heavily review bombed, but polls of people leaving theatres were very positive and it made a lot of money. Critics were generally quite positive about it, but if you read the IMDB user reviews you'd think it was worse than Plan 9.

            More recently you have Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Mostly positive, but one episode that had a non-binary character, whose non-binary-ness wasn't even a part of the plot and never actually mentioned on screen, got panned by user reviews. Critical response was very positive, it was a fun and well made episode with great acting.

            The article itself gave an example where box office results did not correlate with the professional reviews, "Uncharted".

            I saw "Last Jedi" and hated it. So I guess I contributed to the revenue (because it was Star Wars movie) but would give it a terrible review because it sucked and made me never want to give them another dime. Same with Wonder Woman 2, the Mulan remake, Ms. Marvel, Multiverse of Madness, and a bunch of others. So maybe I just destroyed my own argument and revenue has a poor correlation

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              As I said, reviews from people leaving the cinema after having just seen the move rated TLJ pretty highly.

              Strange New Worlds is the best single season of Trek ever. Every episode is all above average, with several instant classics. They really have nailed it. But then if you couldn't even watch Discovery and Picard... I mean yeah, Picard in particular had issues, but they were hardly unwatchable. Viewing figures agree, so it seems you are an outlier.

              • Re:Clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)

                by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @04:04PM (#62833899)

                As I said, reviews from people leaving the cinema after having just seen the move rated TLJ pretty highly.

                Strange New Worlds is the best single season of Trek ever. Every episode is all above average, with several instant classics. They really have nailed it. But then if you couldn't even watch Discovery and Picard... I mean yeah, Picard in particular had issues, but they were hardly unwatchable. Viewing figures agree, so it seems you are an outlier.

                What did you like about Picard? I only saw season one, but I thought what they did to the Star Trek universe and the Picard character was a disgrace. They turned a courageous and well respected figure and turned him into a sad shell of a man who wanders around apologizing while being cursed at and generally disrespected. The entire season one plot made very little sense to me. I started watching season two with some trepidation and tuned out halfway through S2E1.

                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  They gave Data a decent send off. Overall it wasn't great, but it wasn't unwatchable.

                • Re:Clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by Scoth ( 879800 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @05:20PM (#62834197)

                  My take on Season 1 is that basically Picard ended up on the wrong side of history. He advocated strongly for the Romulans and pushed hard for Starfleet and the Federation to support them, and after the attack on Utopia Planetia they turned their backs on them. This left Picard adrift from the only life he knew how to live, likely made him a pariah in a lot of circles, and got him to where we see him when the show picks up. He's a broken man who remembers a time when he was at the top of the world but at this point has been beaten down so much he has to beg for a ship. And he thought maybe what legacy he had left might be enough for it, and it very much wasn't. The initial worldbuilding was mostly great.

                  Now whether the execution of that was good or not, and whether the rest of the storyline makes any sense at all, is certainly open for discussion but I generally liked the initial setup just fine. It follows the ley line from what we saw during the Dominion War in DS9 and shows what happens when there's a more direct, more existential threat close to home the Federation is just as capable of circling the wagons and having maybe just a bit of xenophobia. It shows what happens when a famous and celebrated captain ends up on the wrong side of a conflict (which, if the displays in the headquarters place is to be believed, still has no problem feeding off his legacy and the Enterprise D for whatever purpose they have all that up there for). I did have a lot of problems with the pacing, how they handled certain characters, the way certain plots were either dropped entirely or tied up poorly, and even the ultimate fate of Picard by end of that. Even the very ending of it was completely meh, and Season 2 seemed to almost be a reboot of the entire show. And it was even more troublesome with pacing and storylines with some characters mysteriously gone and others mysteriously there, entire multiepisode plots that went nowhere, etc. It did have a lot of good moments but it often felt like they were really going for nostalgia and canon references a lot. And, frankly, Sir Patrick Stewart is looking pretty frail and he sometimes seemed to struggle to keep up.

                  Anyway, overall I think it's distinctly OK. The good moments are still worth watching it for me. But I don't foresee it being a show I regularly rewatch in the future like I do plenty of other Treks.

          • More recently you have Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Mostly positive, but one episode that had a non-binary character, whose non-binary-ness wasn't even a part of the plot and never actually mentioned on screen, got panned by user reviews.

            This strikes me as quite odd considering the TNG had an episode with a whole species of non-binary types. Except for the one who liked Riker and hijinx ensued.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              TNG was very conservative. I'm that episode they refused to take a moral stand, and instead deferred to tradition and law.

              Before then TOS was not shy at all, with many episodes being controversial (for the time) morality plays.

              In the post TNG era, modern Trek shows are more willing to take a position again. More subtle than TOS, but still with that classic Trek vision of a morally enlightened future.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Forget critics. Watch the trailer and read the plot. If you are intrigued, go see it. I also trust reviews from my friends and actively seek out their insight as to what to watch. They are friends so they know my tastes.
      • Re:Clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:48PM (#62833285) Homepage Journal

        "the critics, who are just normal people and not part of some culture war"

        You are joking, right?

        • Re:Clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)

          by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:52PM (#62833317)
          No, AmiMoJo actually believes drivel like that, so don't mod him Troll, because he is not actually trolling.
          • Re:Clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)

            by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @03:16PM (#62833715) Homepage Journal
            Yeah, I was actually about to posit the exact opposite...that the critics, etc that are part of the Hollywood crowd are boosting any movie with "woke" message and the regular folks are just plan fscking tired of it all.

            The vast majority of folks in the US are middle of the road, main stream, non-blue haired, traditional value type folks that are tired of being screeched and preached at by the very vocal and loud extreme left in the US.

      • Or, critics pan something that isn't woke enough, while audiences lap it up. For example, Amazon Prime's The Terminal List has a 39% critics rating, which is absurd as it is very well done and highly entertaining, and a 94% audience score, which matches my expectation.
      • If critics are "just normal people" then they are very likely "part of some culture war." Normal people have biases and political opinions and get caught up in that sort of thing. A critic would need to be quite abnormal to remain untouched by such things.

        If critics are "rightly panning" anything anti-woke, that is just more evidence that they are influenced by this culture war (and you are too, given your wording).

        I also wonder if the reason why anything vaguely woke gets hit with negative reviews is bec

    • Due to the economics of clickbait, view-driven ad revenue, etc, "critics" MUST be overly divisive and negative towards IP that consumers love. It drives engagement and gets them paid.

      Are you being paid to be a movie critic, or to be a divisive little shit, for clicks n fucks sake?

      At some point, the actual job you're (allegedly) supposed to be doing, comes into play. I see your point, so I question what value critics have anymore.

      Not that a divisive audience is any better.

      • "Are you being paid to be a movie critic, or to be a divisive little shit, for clicks n fucks sake?"

        When being a divisive little shit pays more, most people will pick being the shit.

    • Due to the economics of clickbait, view-driven ad revenue, etc, "critics" MUST be overly divisive and negative towards IP that consumers love. It drives engagement and gets them paid.

      Or.... they really are snobby and despise the things you like.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:24PM (#62833187)

    It's about whatever "message" the movie has. If it's what you like, it's the best since sliced bread, if it's not, it's the worst since Hitler. Nobody really gives a fuck anymore whether the movie is any good or not.

    • by nebaz ( 453974 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:37PM (#62833229)

      Movies that have a divisive message would tend to lower audience scores, not critic scores. (See: The Last Jedi, for example). This article says that audience scores are much higher than critics scores, so I don't think this is the issue in general.

    • Clearly you are the most Hitler that ever Hitlered Hitler. Hitler!

    • by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:40PM (#62833241)

      I don't think its that. I think people are tired of movies having messages at all. A little of it is fine (when properly worked into the story), but we've been beaten over the head by it so hard that I don't even care if I agree with the message or not anymore - if the movie is going to preach to me - even if I'm the choir - I just don't care to watch it.

      Hollywood is long been populated by a bunch of out of touch elites self-congratulating each other on artsy non-sense that the public just doesn't care to watch. Its always been that way - take that fake "Mid-Atlantic" accent that was used in early films that is downright grating on the ears to listen to. As time has gone on that disconnect between movie producers and the public has only gotten wider.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )

        I think people are tired of movies having messages at all.

        I don't think anyone is tired of the "hero goes on a difficult journey, does the right thing, and gets the prize" messages. So you have to further qualify that statement.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by clovis ( 4684 )

      It's about whatever "message" the movie has. If it's what you like, it's the best since sliced bread, if it's not, it's the worst since Hitler. Nobody really gives a fuck anymore whether the movie is any good or not.

      It's what Opportunist said, but I think the problem is largely professional reviewers. The professional reviewers are about the "message". You'll see this even in reviews of local live theater.
      To get a good review now, the movie must have an obvious statement in some social issue such a climate change, racism, or gender issues or evil corporations
      The movie MUST have POC in a visible role. It a absolutely necessary to have either an obviously lgbt+ person with a constant screen presence or an lgbt+ couple

      • by necro81 ( 917438 )

        To get a good review now, the movie must have an obvious statement in some social issue such a climate change, racism, or gender issues or evil corporations The movie MUST have POC in a visible role. It a absolutely necessary to have either an obviously lgbt+ person with a constant screen presence or an lgbt+ couple, and often the lgbt+ couple will have the only display of physical affection. If it's missing these things it will get a mediocre review, but the reviewer will almost never mention that as being

      • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

        It a absolutely necessary to have either an obviously lgbt+ person with a constant screen presence or an lgbt+ couple, and often the lgbt+ couple will have the only display of physical affection.

        But at the same time movies can't go far on that front because they usually want the international markets to accept them (like China).
        TV Shows don't have that restriction.

    • Movies haven't changed much. It's the political spectrum that has shifted further right. Remove Ronald Reagan's name from policies he enacted during his term and he'd be called a "woke leftist" by the current leadership.

      • "It's the political spectrum that has shifted further right."

        It's not so much that the spectrum as a whole has shifted right as that it's polarized. The right's turning fascist, the left is turning loony. Makes it kinda lonely for those of us who like the middle.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ewibble ( 1655195 )

        What? Show me a movie from 50 years ago that had a someone who was LGBQT (there maybe some but it was rare), now its hard to find one that doesn't. Look its fine to have gender diversity in the movies but saying the shift is the political spectrum to the right not movies to the left is just nonsense.

        • Maybe you're dumb or have no knowledge of good movies but I'll indulge your question.

          Midnight Cowboy - 1969 John Voight plays a gay prostitute
          Dog Day Afternoon - 1975 Al Pacino robs a bank to get money so his male partner (John Cazale) can get a sex change operation

          Both academy award winning films with major stars. Also how terrible that movies are representing a class of people who make up 10% of the population.

          • I'll add: "The Last Picture Show" (the coach is gay) from 1971 I think; and "The Lion in Winter" from 1968, both hugely successful and popular with audiences and critics at the time.
    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @02:18PM (#62833423)

      It's about whatever "message" the movie has. If it's what you like, it's the best since sliced bread, if it's not, it's the worst since Hitler. Nobody really gives a fuck anymore whether the movie is any good or not.

      One of the biggest blockbusters of the year was Top Gun: Maverick.

      It was deemed a great movie by young and old audiences alike. Why? Because of the lack of a pseudo-intellectual subliminal bullshit message that some woke producer/director felt needed to infect an unrelated storyline.

      And if the audience today finds "entertainment" defined as pushing agendas or ideologies inside every-fucking-thing they do, hear, or see, I'd hate to see how we define "fun" a decade from now.

      • I haven't seen Top Gun: Maverick. Is it truly free of an agenda/ideology, or is it that people broadly agree with the sentiment being expressed, and therefore do not notice it?
        • Even if you haven't seen it, exactly what "sentiment" would you be expecting from a movie like that? Or a Fast and Furious movie?

          It was a highly entertaining movie. That's it. In other words, exactly what movies are supposed to be. It didn't feel the need to inject some unrelated thread in the storyline, which becomes very apparent within the endless sea of infected entertainment.

          And the audience noticed, by going back to see it again.

        • I didn't see the new one, but the original most definitely had an ideology. The ideology that of being anti-authoritarian (buck up to command), and the ideology that big machines that blow things up, yee haw, is cool, and most definitely the pro-military ideology.

        • Excuse me, but calling a movie that couldn't be more "USA, USA!" chanting if you actually made that chant the effin' soundtrack "free of ideology" is kinda ... funny.

      • by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @03:53PM (#62833847)
        Every movie has an agenda and an ideology. Some movies are more overt about it than others, of course.

        I haven't seen Maverick yet, but based on seeing the original, here's the agenda:

        -Military = cool.

        -Fighter planes = coolest of the cool military.

        -Blowing up stuff = good way to get revenge.

        -Volleyball should be shirtless (for the men only).

        -Women, if in leadership positions, should also be extremely attractive.

        -If your best friend dies and it is mostly your fault, you can best get over it by being a real man and flying real fast and blowing up more stuff.

        -Breaking safety rules is fine as long as you are otherwise awesome.

        I'm not saying it isn't a good movie...just that it has an agenda, too.
      • I have to admit, I was a little surprised that in 2022 Top Gun Maverick wasn't starring a Benetton-ad rainbow assortment of genderfluid trans kids with Maverick himself retconned into Lizzo.

      • Who needs a subliminal message when your whole movie is just obvious direct government militarist warmonger propaganda? Looking for subtext in a Top Gun movie is like looking for the hidden message in Battleship Potemkin.

      • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @05:08PM (#62834163)

        I don't know man. Top Gun has always been about a gay man coming out.

  • Different priorities (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 )
    For fans, movie experience is what matters most. For reviewers, who tend to be part of liberal artistic enclaves, not getting run out of town for not endorsing the activist message of the day is what matters most. If they allowed anonymous critic reviews you would see less differences in critic vs. audience scores.
  • I can't speak on behalf of Metracritic or any other review sites but isn't it common knowledge that Rotten Tomatoes games the review system? Aside from high profile articles that have criticized them for exactly that, I've submitted a number of reviews to their site and a number of negative reviews haven't seen the light of day criticizing agenda driven TV shows. I've seen social media groups representing shows and movies proclaim "100%" while the site was suppressing negative reviews. They've also claimed
  • In related news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:51PM (#62833307)

    McDonald's sold millions of hamburgers this year despite critics reviews.

  • My local movie critic gets national attention. He almost always derides blockbusters and any movies that cater to the common man. That includes all scifi, fantasy and comicbook movies. All superhero movies, most movies that require blatant sex and violence, and anything that requires magic to make a hero look good. He is a major naysayer to all that is fun in this world.

    I don't understand this attitude. Just because we aren't as smart or educated or sophisticated as he is, does that mean that we can't judge

    • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      I think different people have different expectations and thus criteria. Many critics view movies as 'art', and judge them on their artistic merits. Many 'common people' view movies as 'entertainment', and judge them on how entertaining they are. There is nothing really wrong with either approach, you just have to find critics that view movies the same way you do.

    • by swell ( 195815 )

      Yeahbut when my movie critic sees a pathetic artsy movie with a crippled orphan in Afghanistan struggling to hustle a coin or a meal on the dusty streets, the praise is unending. Or read his kind words regarding a boring documentary about scientists trying to save the Barrier Reef, or about a history of Ukraine and its struggle for identity, or his admiration for a biography of some dead AIDS researcher whose work saved countless lives. Of course he loves anything that can inspire or improve the lives of vi

    • My local movie critic gets national attention. He almost always derides blockbusters and any movies that cater to the common man. That includes all scifi, fantasy and comicbook movies. All superhero movies, most movies that require blatant sex and violence, and anything that requires magic to make a hero look good. He is a major naysayer to all that is fun in this world.

      I don't understand this attitude. Just because we aren't as smart or educated or sophisticated as he is, does that mean that we can't judge

  • Because there are more of both, and there are a lot more methods of communicating than during the eras of newspapers, radio, and television. There are also a lot more of them than agree than before as well. Your average fan these days is probably at least as opinionated and well informed as the professional critics 30 or 40 years ago.
  • by SerpentMage ( 13390 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @02:02PM (#62833363)

    This is simple to understand... It is why people like chips, sundaes and things that are bad for us. We like it because it rubs us the right way. There is no deep meaning, or some bigger than life understanding. It is simple enjoyment in its simplest form. Critics don't like that because it would mean that they can't dissect the plot, or give some in depth meaning to things. Not surprising.

    • by ewibble ( 1655195 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @03:12PM (#62833703)

      I like both deep and meaningful, and just fun depending on my mood. The problem I see is what is deep meaningful has to change, gay rights, gender equality, etc.. They where edgy 30 years ago the explored new things, but the same stories now are just boring, they are no longer edgy and seem preachy with things I already agree with. For deep and meaningful I want my world view challenged.

    • This is simple to understand... It is why people like chips, sundaes and things that are bad for us. We like it because it rubs us the right way.

      Exactly this. Most of the comments here seem to assume that someone must be wrong if the scores diverge between the critics and audience, but you've nailed the reason why that's a false dichotomy: because the simple enjoyment most people use for our review scores is not the same sort of measure a critic uses when coming up with a score in their reviews.

      To me, that's a feature, not a bug.

      Films can be lots of things to lots of people. Sometimes we want to "tune in and tune out". Sometimes we want to be challe

  • by Anonymous Coward

    One of those groups has grown up, and one has not.

    Oh, and I'll believe the audience has taste and original thoughts again once they stop sucking on Sequel N. Remake's dick. The rest of us are fucking over it.

  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @02:15PM (#62833411) Homepage

    Fans want to be entertained. Critics look for unique concepts or plot twists that make some kind of artistic statement. Fans don't care about statements, other than if the statement is so in-your-face that it distracts from the story, those statements turn them off.

    The divergence makes total sense.

    • Fans want to be entertained. Critics look for unique concepts or plot twists that make some kind of artistic statement. Fans don't care about statements, other than if the statement is so in-your-face that it distracts from the story, those statements turn them off.

      The divergence makes total sense.

      Eh, in this case I think the critics are right.

      I actually watched Uncharted and found it kinda boring. The plot felt very formulaic, the twists were obvious, the characters felt one-dimensional, and there were other issues that I could probably explain better if I were a critic.

      Plot twists isn't the proper way to look at it. In music, one of the things that makes a song great is surprises in the melody, breaks in the pattern [oup.com]. Plot is the same thing, characters should be consistent to be believable, but you

  • Fans that are bought and paid for are not Fans. How many of those Fans that aren't influencers are instead astroturfers?
  • I've got to agree with the critics on this one. The last few years have been noticeably worse for anyone looking for something beyond the mediocrity Disney perpetually churns out. I cant even remember the last time I've watched a new comedy out of Hollywood that wasnt utter crap meanwhile TV and streaming shows dont seem to have that problem.

  • I have stopped watching. There is nothing of any worth in Cinema these days. I prefer to read a good book or play some nice game.

  • by businessnerd ( 1009815 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @03:02PM (#62833661)
    I did. Read some the general critics consensus afterwards and pretty much agreed. The movie seems like a parody of every recent adventure movie where Captain Jack Sparrow attempts to steal the constitution from the Nazis before the bank can foreclose on his childhood home. That's not to say that the movie wasn't entertaining. It was fine. Younger audiences would enjoy it, but there are much better executed movies in the genre. The pacing is a little off, the CGI is just so-so, and you are asked to suspend disbelief just a little too much. If you read about the production of the movie, you wouldn't be surprised. Based on a popular video game series, went through rewrite after rewrite, passed between half the directors in Hollywood for years between finally getting made (and with Covid also throwing a wrench in the mix). Considering I watched it at home on Netflix, the ticket price was worth it, but I'm glad I hadn't paid to see it in a theater.

    Everyone on here is complaining about how every movie is trying to push an agenda. This is not one of them, unless you think "don't give up" and "don't let greed cloud your judgment" are too divisive in this day and age.

    I also hear people on here complaining that critics are out of touch and snobby. That may be true to many, but there are also many who understand who a movie is intended for and measure it's quality based on its intended audience. Roger Ebert ascribed to this. And in the case of this movie, those good critics have seen them all. They know what a good version of the adventure film targeted to ages 13 - 30 is. They just happen to not think Uncharted is one of them.
  • .... and assume the high rating viewer score indicates how "fun" the movie is (or occasionally how stupid the viewers are ... wtf, "The Greatest Showman" ). Usually if critic and viewer scores are in the 5 to 6 range (imdb), I'm out. I tend to trust higher scoring critic ratings, and if they're both above 8 (or 80 for metacritic), I'll probably give a try if it's a genre I'm interested in.
  • I have never agreed with traditional critics. Now with the advent of things like rotten tomatoes etc. they become even less relevant. There are nontraditional critics, such as Critical Drinker that I do agree with.

    When it comes to plotlines and characters there will always be disagreement but let's also face it, stories are becoming more shit every year. We need better stories, with fuller characters and that needs to get conveyed into screenplays that work. The latter is greatly influenced by the producers

  • by GotNoRice ( 7207988 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @03:39PM (#62833781)
    More and more people every day review content based on their political views, rather than based on the merits of the content itself. Like that Buzz Lightyear movie with the same-sex kiss? Tons of Conservatives who probably never saw the movie rated it down because of that. Tons of Liberals who probably never saw the movie rated it up because of that.
  • First of all, if “blockbuster” is measured by ticket sales, then price increases since covid reopening put a thumb on the scales. I would be interested in seeing audience numbers over the years rather than a price hike = blockbuster. Plus, new releases on a streaming platforms can be 2x or 3x the cost of a ticket. It’s not apples to apples.
    Secondly critics are looking for plot, character development, story depth, acting, the intangibles that create a great movie. Today’s movies
  • I wonder how much of it is experienced reviewers seeing the new film as yet another X while younger viewers (including young adults) never saw X or the old inevitable knock-off of X in the first place and so rate it higher.

  • Movie critics, like wine sommeliers who can't tell the difference between a dyed white and a red, are an accoutrement profession. They know how to make pertinent sounding noises about a subject, and can be entertaining when they pontificate, but they aren't any good at saying anything useful that isn't in the credits, on the back cover of the book, or on the label of bottle.

God doesn't play dice. -- Albert Einstein

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