Critic reviews vs your enjoyment

Most of the time critic reviews on newly released movies offer a good idea on what to expect from them and whether they're good enough to spend money to watch in the cinema. However there are times when critic reviews don't match those of the general public.

Ever seen a film you enjoyed only to be baffled by the poor rating it got on Rotten Tomatoes or similar? Has the opposite happened instead?

I watched Chappie a while ago and enjoyed the film. The story had some flaws which critics pointed out and whilst the characters were one dimensional, to me they weren't boring to watch.

Pretty much, yes. I don't pay much attention to critics. Take for example the Minions movie... I loved this movie so much. Because let's face it, the minions are comical and adorable. Yet, some critics made a bit of a stink about the movie not being very good. I feel that most people take it too seriously. I mean it's just a movie... you know? You should watch the movie before following what the critics say about it. That's like saying you hate something, yet you've never tried it before in your life.

What if it's webshow critics such as the Nostalgia Critic and Angry Joe; would you trust them over professional critics? They seem to know more on the subject than both audiences and critics while putting a comedic spin.

Tomorrowland is a rather decent film with an important message, but its low scores from critics and the fact that it lost to Mad Max Road Fury, which goes against Tomorrowland's message of building a better tomorrow, at the box office has started to make me grow a dislike towards people's cynical nature about the future.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

Tomorrowland is a rather decent film with an important message, but its low scores from critics and the fact that it lost to Mad Max Road Fury, which goes against Tomorrowland's message of building a better tomorrow, at the box office has started to make me grow a dislike towards people's cynical nature about the future.

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I think Tomorrowland was an excellent movie. The fact that critics rated it down angers me because you're right... it does have a positive image. I've lost trust in critics because they downgrade movies that are supposed to be good, and up rate movies that are supposed to be bad. That's how I see it. When I watch a movie, I don't go to what critics say about it at all. I go watch a movie in the theaters because it gains my interest and such. There's never been a movie I've hated, which I've seen in theaters so far either.

Critics are also very keen to down voting horror movies as well. While, I don't get anywhere near horror films though... I've noticed a number of critics saying how awful today's horror movies are. That they aren't scary enough or thrilling enough. It's crazy because those movies do scare people more than they think. It's almost like the critics of these movies are unfazed by the elements of a horror movie. If I watched one theaters, I'd end up running out and screaming bloody murder.

What gets me is how much the critics will attack movies meant for little kids too. Movies like as I said before, the Minions and also Tomorrowland. Space Jam got a lot of low ratings as well, yet I absolutely love this movie. I don't see why critics have to down vote movies that are geared towards kids. Of course they're going to suck for adults because they aren't MEANT for adults, even if the movie is family oriented... it's still going to suck to critics because it's a movie more geared towards younger viewers who don't like the same elements an adult movie would have.

critics do not systematically downrate family movies, I can guarantee you that much. the ratio of well-received family movies to poorly received family movies is going to be largely the same as the ratio of well-received ""adult"" movies to poorly received ""adult"" movies.

that being said, I do use rottentomatoes to SOME extent to, like, guide what movies I go to see in theaters. I do put a decent amount of stock into what professional critics say, even though I don't necessarily always agree with him. I'm much more inclined to trust specific people I know or perhaps lesser-known, smaller-time critics than I am the huge names, though. plus there's no single critic whose opinions I follow as gospel.

I'm gonna avoid a film that does absolutely horrendously, though. usually professional critics offer a good barometer as to what's not worth seeing, at the very least.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

Tomorrowland is a rather decent film with an important message, but its low scores from critics and the fact that it lost to Mad Max Road Fury, which goes against Tomorrowland's message of building a better tomorrow, at the box office has started to make me grow a dislike towards people's cynical nature about the future.

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The message in Mad Max was that even when the world goes to hell it's still worth fighting for a future. I dunno how that necessarily goes against "build a better future" theme, but I think it's fairly positive and good to hear in today's world where there are a lot of jaded people who think they can't do anything to change the world.

Okay, that aside, critics are all pretty different in their tastes and you have to find one who seems to have the same views on what makes a good movie. If I find one of those then I'll listen to what they have to say. I'll also listen to what the general pool of critics say, but not as much. Usually I think I have a fairly good sense of what I'm walking into when I go see a movie, either because I'm familiar with an actor or director or writer or whatever.

I only watch films that have a good critical reception because eventually I realised that I always agree with them and I got tired of seeing shitty movies. I even think that they're often too generous. A lot of films with good reception are not that great imo.

I know "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was panned, and it's one of my favourite films. Apart from that, I don't think I've ever enjoyed one with a bad reception.

It really depends on your reason for watching films whether it's worth listening to critics or not. A movie might be a laugh to watch, but if it doesn't tick the boxes for being technical, original etc. then it's going to get a bad rating.

Honestly, I only Trust in Ebert. Even though I still get annoyed when reading some of his reviews - sometimes he was a bit creepy (his thoughts on Ingrid Bergman), sometimes he was dismissive for no good reason other than being a willful contrarian (The Usual Suspects). But we were overall very similar in our understanding of most films, coming at things from an emotional perspective rather the the intellectual perspective done to death by his far more anal-retentive peers. Obviously I don't give the same level of trust to reviews done on his site after his 2013 passing, but I still treat the post-death reviews with a good level of respect given how those posting on the site would have been in his favour and therefore of similar opinions.

Otherwise, I make my own thoughts and stick by them, using professional critics only as a guide of what to expect and how my opinion will reflect against the professional and typical movie-going crowd.

To answer the main question, the short answer for me is no. When it comes to movies (And this also goes for music and TV shows, for video games it is a tad bit different.), unless I'm watching a movie with a friend or a group of friends (Because I want everyone to have a good time), I only care about one thing in the end and that is rather I enjoyed watching it. Rather if critics like them or not, I don't care. I do look at reviews a lot, I go to Rottentomatoes frequently, however I mostly go by how much I enjoy the movie, I may get some influence on watching a movie by either making me want to watch it more if positive or not wanting to watch it as much if it was negative, that doesn't mean I will or won't watch it and they will never have an effect on how much I liked the movie. To name a few, I really enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Raven, Four Brothers, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, and the SAW movies, yet they got negative reviews by critics, and to also name a few, I really didn't like The Outpost and The Fault In Our Stars even though they got really good reviews by critics and it's normal for me to have a different opinion on them from critics and it's normal for them to have a different opinion from me.

CrazyBunnyCoaster said:

Critics are also very keen to down voting horror movies as well. While, I don't get anywhere near horror films though... I've noticed a number of critics saying how awful today's horror movies are. That they aren't scary enough or thrilling enough. It's crazy because those movies do scare people more than they think. It's almost like the critics of these movies are unfazed by the elements of a horror movie. If I watched one theaters, I'd end up running out and screaming bloody murder.

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I like to review movies after I see them in theaters, and I can definitely say that I'm the hardest on horror movies. Part of it is because horror is the genre I know best, but also because horror is one of those genres studios can make for very cheap, and rake in the profits. Because of this, studios take advantage of the genre, and make the worst movies. You get movies like Ouija, As Above, So Below, and The Gallows, which really didn't have that much effort put into them. They were made for cheap, brought in good profits at the box office, yet everyone agrees that they were terrible movies. Since they brought in profits, however, the studios were happy and will continue to pump out these generic horror films until the profit goes away. So if it seems that horror gets a lot of hate, it's because I think the studios pump out a lot of cheap horror.

If you're wondering why they're cheap, it's because of jump scares. It's the easiest scare to achieve, and takes no effort at all to film something moving towards the camera, and add a loud sound to it. These scares can be well done, but the studios keep adding scare after scare, not caring at all about how the tension carries through the film, and the movie just dies because of it. And I'm not even mentioning the terrible writing and acting these films tend to have.

Now recent horror movies like The Babadook, Insidious, and Sinister have been welcome additions to the genre, and received good feedback from critics overall. So there are still good horror movies being made, they just sometimes get lost with all the cheap ones studios pump out for a quick buck.

I recently saw Sinister 2 and didn't think it deserved the current 13% it has on Rotten Tomatoes. Sure, it's not as good as the first one, but it's not trying to be the first one. It's trying to take a way darker turn with the story, focusing on the other side of the coin. For what it does, it does well. It's not great, but it's not bad either, at least for me.

As far as movies with better scores than they deserve, I think Gone Girl is a little too far up there with 88%. It's a smart movie, don't get me wrong, but the plot felt really rushed, some transitions weren't the best, and I feel like they tried to fit in too much information in one movie, leaving for one of the worst endings I have ever seen. I'd still rate it about 75%, but not anything higher. It should have been two movies, but they tried to force it into one.

When it comes to critic reviews for movies, I mainly look them up in a newspaper. I don't look up the reviews online. Course there are times I don't agree with the star rating that the critic gives for a movie.

Echoing what Nolafus said above, that the horror genre is often given the harshest reviews by nature of the genre itself. I think I made a post on here detailing in length the intricacies of the horror genre, but I don't remember where. But Nolafus sums up most of the situation anyway. They're the easiest kinds of movies to make, or at least the easiest ones to make on a low budget that will guarantee some revenue or status. A shitty drama won't bring in the quick money that a shit horror flick will because an audience will always pay for good old fashioned blood and guts. As such, the genre is flooded with awful, cheap scenes and atrocious acting. Anyway, horror movies are really the only genre of films that I universally ignore critical reviews of because they are so quick to dismiss any movie within the genre that isn't psychological horror, the only 'acceptable' horror subgenre for most critics. They're quite anal about this for some reason. It's this elitism that leaves me only able to trust myself as to whether a horror movie is indeed 'good'. I enjoyed The Hills Have Eyes just as much as I enjoyed Silence of the Lambs, despite the former obviously being nowhere as much of a cinematic triumph compared to Lambs. But does that mean it wasn't any less enjoyable, and therefore a worse movie? Hardly not.

However trustworthy critics may seem to be, they are still humans with opinions, and opinions are never absolute, meaning they aren't everything. I definitely don't let negative reviews stop me from seeing a movie I think I'd like, and I would say a lot of the time critics get it wrong, and what they deem as qualities that make a movie worth a good rating may be different from a casual viewer, if that makes sense. However, I will say that critics opinions definitely aren't worthless, like for example, I thought about seeing Pixels, but seeing the absolutely atrocious RT rating (>20%) I knew not to.

I think critics are total bullshit. I don't know why you would try and objectify something that is so subjective. Movies are art really, and art is above criticism and those who criticize it, so my interactions with reviews are nothing more than entertainment.

God said:

Echoing what Nolafus said above, that the horror genre is often given the harshest reviews by nature of the genre itself. I think I made a post on here detailing in length the intricacies of the horror genre, but I don't remember where. But Nolafus sums up most of the situation anyway. They're the easiest kinds of movies to make, or at least the easiest ones to make on a low budget that will guarantee some revenue or status. A mukty drama won't bring in the quick money that a muk horror flick will because an audience will always pay for good old fashioned blood and guts. As such, the genre is flooded with awful, cheap scenes and atrocious acting. Anyway, horror movies are really the only genre of films that I universally ignore critical reviews of because they are so quick to dismiss any movie within the genre that isn't psychological horror, the only 'acceptable' horror subgenre for most critics. They're quite anal about this for some reason. It's this elitism that leaves me only able to trust myself as to whether a horror movie is indeed 'good'. I enjoyed The Hills Have Eyes just as much as I enjoyed Silence of the Lambs, despite the former obviously being nowhere as much of a cinematic triumph compared to Lambs. But does that mean it wasn't any less enjoyable, and therefore a worse movie? Hardly not.

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It's usually the horror remakes that get the most flak from critics when it comes to the genre, as they're usually grouped with live action adaptations of shows and cartoons they grew up with as the sole reason why Hollywood is going downhill/running out of ideas and is in dire need for more original films, movies not based on an already-existing source material, like Inception or Inside Out, even though the majority of films that win the Oscars are movies based on true stories, meaning they're are not original films.

Yeah, I take critics' opinions pretty seriously. My girlfriend watch about a movie or so a month, so apart from movies we have already decided to watch, we rely on ratings to see if viewing the movie is worth the money. I find that I tend to agree with critics, so it's a good gauge for me.

As a movie reviewer myself, I always look at the reviews to give me a fresh idea of what I am to expect from a movie. Sometimes a lame movie trailer will make me go meh, but after watching the good reviews from different movie reviewers, I would change my mind. But that's not always the case. If I'm really hyped for a movie, I will go see it even if it's bad. But if it's a bad movie and reviews says it's bad and I don't mind not watching it in the theaters, then I won't.

As an avid big cinema fan. I always watch videos of critics when it comes to shows/movies I wanna see or saw, just to know what their input is on it :)