This summer saw James Gunn’s Superman — the director’s latest foray into the superhero genre after The Suicide Squad and the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy — landing with a sonic boom into theaters, taking over $220 million worldwide on its opening weekend. As with any blockbuster, the review embargo dropped a few days prior and with it came a flurry of writing from Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critics. Much like the super-dog Krypto is always nipping at the heels of David Corenswet’s titular man of steel, so too is discourse around what the critical consensus actually is on a film like Superman. At time of writing, Rotten Tomatoes has registered 355 reviews and a score of 83%, marking that 83% of critics gave the film at least 3 out of 5 and chose to declare it as ‘Fresh’.
We should all know how the film-centric website Rotten Tomatoes operates by now: it is an aggregator, with the Tomatometer acting as a binary collection of critics’ reviews. Critics, or their outlet, submit their reviews to the website. They add a pull quote, a score, click yes on the terms and conditions, and then choose how they wish their review to contribute to the Tomatometer by picking either Fresh or Rotten.
This is, ultimately, the limitation of Rotten Tomatoes' entire modus operandi, because movies are a form of art; a collaborative effort made from the imagination of non-artificial human beings, from studio-funded blockbusters like Superman, where thousands of minds contribute tiny flickers of their energy to create one whole, to tiny independent films made by an individual finding two nickels in between their sofa cushions. They can’t be critiqued or summed up as neatly as Yes or No. However, what is mostly unspoken about is that nearly every single Tomatometer score is ‘accidentally’ inflated for one simple, succinct reason: critics love movies.
I know that sounds ridiculous. Why would a score be inflated just because critics love movies?! It’s contradictory on the surface but you must first understand that critics often start in this job because they love movies. It is not because they love being contrarian, or for the — admittedly quite satisfying — feeling that comes from writing a hatchet job. It is because we, first and foremost, love the movies. We are movie fans. It is why the “we made this film for the fans” argument that gets regurgitated out of actors and directors mouths when they come up against negative critical response has no leg to stand on because the critics are also the fans.
However, as a professional film critic who works freelance, I get access to early screenings of films through the Film Distributors Association, through contacts as part of GALECA (a LGBTQ+ critics association), and through screeners from relationships with PR that I have fostered over years of grinding for bylines. This means I get to choose what I pitch and what I review. Outlets prefer seeing a strong, positive review of a film on their respective sites and magazines so it is understandably quite difficult to pitch a review that would be declared ‘rotten’ when submitted to Rotten Tomatoes (that is unless you have a particularly interesting angle to take on the film). When I am not commissioned on something prior to seeing it, I have no devout obligation to review a film aside from some potential financial gain — but again, it is unlikely any outlet commissions a negative review. It is polite to review when a distributor or PR has gone out of their way to give you the film digitally, but what is then written must be truthful.
The ethical bedrock of writing as a professional critic is honesty. Sometimes that means you have to write a negative review of something you got early, something that the PR folk are hoping you review positively. But I love films! I hope to like everything in some capacity. I love writing about films and I especially love when I get to wax lyrical about how great a film is. My choice not to review a small film negatively for my own personal Rotten Tomatoes-approved Substack — a.k.a no financial incentive — is a decision I make that does naturally inflate the score of said film. But if every film critic reviewed every single bad movie they saw, they wouldn’t have the time or mental bandwidth to champion the great art that comes out each year.
I got into this profession because I wanted to champion films, to write about what excites me about up and coming directors or to praise the old dogs that are performing new tricks. I want to help spread the word about cracking films like Honey Bunch and Little Trouble Girls. However, the sad truth of the profession is that not everything is good and when we must write a review categorized as ‘rotten’, it must be done constructively. Which is where the words a critic writes matter!
Rotten Tomatoes' system is inherently flawed, as it doesn’t account for the nuance of a mixed review, forcing the critic to choose how they wish their words to be interpreted by a binary model. This decision is where most critics — especially on a major release like Superman — find frustration. Not always in the making of the decision itself, but as to what figurative, arbitrary parameters to attach knowing the world is watching and reading what you write.
This is especially pertinent because a 3-star review for a blockbuster means a completely different thing in comparison to a 3-star for a low-budget indie flick. Where the former is often seen as a failure (the Warner Brothers marketing people behind Superman beg to read the words ‘masterpiece’ and ‘best Superman movie ever’ in reviews), a reputable outlet like The Guardian or The New York Times placing a ‘fresh’ 3 stars on a small film can catapult it from the Video-On-Demand graveyard to a cinema screen.
Personally, my outlook is that I will critique Superman — a CGI smorgasbord clusterfuck of a blockbuster with a huge budget, one that is distracted by setting up a universe of future money-spinners — harsher than a small film that is the work of a director trying to find their voice with minimal resources. But for most of the critics who have submitted mixed reviews of Superman to Rotten Tomatoes and categorized these words as 'fresh', leading to a relatively inflated Tomatometer score, isn’t it because we just love the movies?
Aren’t we all just so in love with movies that it ultimately becomes difficult to attach ‘rotten’ to a film like Superman? A far-too-busy film, but one that is entertaining, competent, and well-performed by a smattering of newly minted young actors getting their big break? One made with honorable intentions, even if it can only pay lip service to Gunn’s more politically charged ideas? One that employed thousands of talented artists and voices for months? One that has been constructed with an undeniable sense of passion from a director in love with the character? And one that, to all intents and purposes, attempts to perpetuate that kindness is the new punk rock?
The abundance of ‘fresh’ reviews — that also rate the film 3 stars — isn’t because critics are scared to go against the grain or because they’re lying to themselves or even because Warner Brothers have paid them off as some corners of the internet like to postulate. No, it’s as simple as the hopeful message of humanity that just about peeks through the cluttered Superman. Critics are predisposed to focusing on the really good stuff in movies because we love them so. While dwelling on the bad is a necessary and important part of the job, it is ultimately an appreciation for the craft, the effort and the abundance of joy movies bring us that sway our finger towards clicking ‘fresh’ on a film that we are relatively mixed on. To paraphrase Bennet Miller’s excellent Moneyball, how can you not be romantic about movies?
