Movie ratings consistently become more harsh in the modern day
February 28, 2018
Ratings Snips from Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten tomatoes scores can be all over the place, but more recently they have been putting many fantastic genres on the down and too many of the same genres on the up.
From the earliest days in movie history with classics such as “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca” to more recent times with movies like “The Emoji Movie,” critic ratings have either strengthened motion pictures or plagued them. Whether a critic rates a movie highly or not usually tells whether a movie will be a hit or a miss. Not necessarily true, as the aforementioned “The Emoji Movie” has been a technical success due to the box office sales, but critically this was one of the worst movies ever made. Though, a question needs to be asked, have movies suffered due to a more harsh system? That answer is yes.
To break down this system, take “Citizen Kane” as an example. In this day and age, “Citizen Kane,” considered by many to be the greatest motion picture of all time, would be slaughtered by modern movie critics. First, Kane has an overlong and messy plot. Take that 100% rotten tomato score down to a 75% just because of that. Dock an extra 10% for the lack of action and overall provocation in the movie itself. Take off another 5% for a relatively unrelatable plot. This movie is now at a 60% rating. This is still an above average rating technically, but take off more positive points for some over dramatic acting, poor sub characters, so on and that movie would be somewhere in the fifty percent range for a rating. If a viewer were to see a 50% rating on a two hour long movie, “Citizen Kane” would be passed up without question.
Though, this is not to the fault of Orson Welles or “Citizen Kane.” This is to the fault of the overly nit picky and modern critics. “Citizen Kane” is an utter masterpiece in any age of film making due to its highly intelligent plot, amazing direction and acting, and groundbreaking film making. Yet, the fact is, “Citizen Kane” would never make it in modern cinema.
Movie critics have also taken a new route on different genres of movies by judging them in the same way no matter the type of movie. Meaning, a classic romcom will never have the same rating as a drama. Take “Love Actually,” one of the most classic romcoms ever made. Though not completely realistic at some points, “Love Actually” combined hardcore emotion with happiness and comedy, along with unbeatable chemistry between some brilliant actors and actresses. A film many will be watching for years, now compare that to the highly rated and acclaimed “X2” made in the same year. “X2,” the second X-Men movie, was a fine film in its own right. It just wasn’t that great, especially to earn an 85% on rotten tomatoes. A dodgy plot, very inconsistent acting, and streaky CGI, “X2” just isn’t the amazing movie every critic makes it out to be. Yet it is rated so highly, but the film that infinite families and couples watch between the months of December to February has nearly a 20% difference in scores? And this isn’t questioned just because “Love Actually” is a favorite among many, but it is truly a great movie. An average superhero movie will consistently be rated better than most romcoms, that needs to be changed as it does not reflect overall quality of filmmaking in ratings.
Critics are important in society still. They reveal hidden gems to the world that need more exposure like, “Moonlight” and “A Ghost Story” the Casey Affleck “A Ghost Story” not the Patrick Swayze “Ghost.” They still need to refocus and re calibrate their decision making in critiquing movies. Whether it be giving ratings by comparing movies between others in their own genre or overall becoming more lenient and seeing the quality in more movies, there is more than meets the eye in most films.
The entire point of this should be that as a viewer, don’t just look at the rating of a movie and decide on if it’s worth watching just from that. If a Guardians of the Galaxy fan wants to watch Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, they should ignore all the people giving it a worse rating because they’ll still love it. It’s Guardians of the Galaxy for goodness sake, it’ll be great. A viewer should watch the movie that pulls them in. They should watch the movie that they feel will put a smile on their face, tears in their eyes, or strong emotion in their heart by the end of it, even if it has a 30% on rotten tomatoes or a 5.5 on IMDb.