What’s the point of Rotten Tomatoes?

Rotten Tomatoes, the US-based review compilation website, has become a major name in the entertainment world. Film studios trumpet positive so-called “RT” ratings as a marketing tool, and a “Rotten” score can really harm the success of a movie. But has the site become too powerful? After heavy backlash linked to a disconnect between reviewers and audiences, is it even particularly useful? What is the point of Rotten Tomatoes in 2019?

What is the point of Rotten Tomatoes in 2019?

The site has two main tacks – the audience and critic scores. If at least 60% of critics give a film a positive review (3 out of 5 or higher), it is termed “Fresh” – these reviews are compiled from review outlets and major publications. These reviews don’t necessarily need to be overly complimentary, just more positive than negative. It’s much the same with the audience score, except they review directly on the site, and these need to be 3.5 or higher to be deemed positive. There are a number of obvious issues here – it boils down films to a single thumbs up or down, for example – but also some potential positives. Audiences are more likely to watch a film they’ll probably enjoy so, say you like horror, the score is likely to be compiled by fellow horror-goers.

Rotten Tomatoes really hit the news in the run-up to the release of Captain Marvel. After a deluge of negative reviews prior to the film’s release and the ‘want to see’ rating plummeting, the website announced a few changes. The “want to see” function is now hidden, and users are unable to post reviews of a film until its release (something which, if we’re honest, is eminently sensible). Paul Yanover, president of Fandango (which owns RT) claimed that the Captain Marvel controversy was incidental to these planned changes, although later press reports revealed that that was not in fact the case. After the release, the site also took care to go through audience reviews and delete those that were likely to be spam, or placed there by bots (leading to many leading reviewers claiming that RT was “rescuing the film from sexist trolls”). All in all, 50,000 reviews were deleted by the site, pretty much all of which were negative (images later circulated on social media showing identical positive reviews which remained untouched, suggesting there may also have been an added agenda at play).

After a deluge of negative reviews prior to Captain Marvel’s release, the website announced a few changes

Captain Marvel was the latest subject of a fury that has befallen a number of recent films, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters, Ocean’s 8 and, in the world of TV, Doctor Who. All of them were attacked for a perceived progressiveness prior to their release, and all of them attracted critical praise and audience condemnation (in the most pronounced case, Doctor Who has a 91% critical rating and 21% audience score). I’m not going to comment on that one way or the other, but it’s worth drawing attention to these cases, in which any criticism of the film was dismissed as sexism or racism by talking heads, emphasising a disconnect between what the audience and critics defined as important.

If you look at many reviews of Doctor Who, they’re positive because they praise the casting of a woman in the main role, and rarely ever actually analyse the show. Commentators have suggested that the audience’s supposed hatred towards Captain Marvel was primarily motivated by the focus on a female in a superhero blockbuster – but this didn’t impact Wonder Woman, which currently sits on 93/88% scores. It’s more likely that the film suffered (reputation-wise, at least) from comments made by its stars – Brie Larson expressed dismay at an “overwhelmingly white male” press tour, and Samuel L. Jackson compared President Donald Trump to a “plantation” owner. A good rule when marketing any film is to refrain from attacking your potential audience, and it was this error, perhaps more than anything, that upset the viewing public.

A good rule when marketing any film is to refrain from attacking your potential audience

It’s not just cases like this, however, that emphasise the disconnect between reviewers and audiences. Critics slated films like Venom (29%) and Jigsaw (34%) for being derivative, boring and stupid – while audiences gave them scores of 81 and 90% respectively. On the other hand, critics praised It Comes at Night (87%) and Hail, Caesar! (86%), but audiences found a lot less to love, giving them both a middling 44%. For every film where critics and audiences agree on its quality, there are ten more where they don’t. Audiences even called for RT to be shut down in the wake of negative reviews for Suicide Squad – a petition was circulated, aiming “to deliver a message to the critics that there are a lot of people that disagree with their reviews”. And this leads to a big question – what value should we place in reviews? Although reviewers ought to be able to impartially evaluate a film, can it actually be done? To go back to my horror example, say a jump scare doesn’t work for you, is that because it’s poorly done? Perhaps you weren’t fully engaged with the film, or you’ve seen every horror film under the sun? Reviewers are people and reviews, no matter how much you attempt to be fair, will inevitably be coloured by your own perceptions and biases.

Is there a point to Rotten Tomatoes? It has its uses, definitely, but the scores it offers should still be taken with a pinch of salt, especially if it’s going to make further inroads into curbing audience engagement with the site. Don’t use RT as the main way of shaping your film-watching experience any more than you would a single review – go out and watch things, and make up your own mind.