Alright then, just wanted to post this little editorial because I thought all the information coming in was rather interesting. Just to be clear I have no specific allegiance to either Marvel or DC, I love both and actually The Dark Knight is my favorite comic book movie, let alone one of my all time favorites.
As many of you may know the extremely popular movie ratings site Rotten Tomatoes has in many ways become the benchmark for reviews. Although not always accurate they get it right a lot of the time, and many movies live or die on the RT score results. Get a bad overall review there and you just might kiss the chances of you're movie being a box office success goodbye. This isn't always the case, and if you're like me then you form your own opinion of a film once you have seen it. But I would venture to say the majority of audiences decide whether or not to see a flick depending upon the reviews they read. And even I'll admit that if I'm not that into a movie and the RT score is really poor, I may just skip the theater and wait for the DVD.
That being said Rotten Tomatoes is indeed owned by Warner Brothers, the company behind the recently released Harry Potter movie. As the reviews roll in it would seem that the RT score is being manipulated to be presented as low score and in fact rotten. As I write this the score stands at 58% with a 7/10 rating, 14 positive reviews and 10 negative. Wow? 7/10 still, and it sits at a 58% rating? A little odd I might say. I've been scanning the web all day and I know for a fact there are way more than 14 positive reviews from major critics out there, and maybe there are more than 10 negative reviews from major critics but I don't see them. In fact every negative review that I see on the web is updated on RT, but there are still tons of positive reviews yet to be released. I also find it odd that of those 10 negative reviews 3 of them don't actually seem negative and they all have a score over 60%, is RT actually reading these things?
I don't think it's a stretch to think that RT is sitting on a ton of great reviews until the very last minute, or at least as long as they can. It's almost like they're deliberately waiting for a negative review to come in until they put up another positive one, perhaps to keep that score down as long as possible? I don't think it's a coincidence that of the first 8 reviews posted 6 of them were negative. Where have we gone since then? Positive has gone up by 12 and negative only by 4. Huh? maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist but that does seem a little odd.
And to further add to the coincidence those first negative reviews allowed RT to Tweet that Captain America: The First Avenger is Rotten! In fact they tweeted it a bunch of times. Why would they tweet that, after only 8 reviews? Seriously, I can almost say for a fact that wouldn't have happened to a Warner Brothers movie, and for good reason, 8 reviews is hardly a accurate representation of a movies critical reception.
To be honest if this is indeed what RT is attempting to do it's actually pretty smart albeit a little unethical. It's technically not illegal, they own the site and eventually all the reviews will be on there, but who's to say they're not doing their upmost to keep the positive buzz down. if you're like me when I woke up this morning I immediately went to RT out of curiosity, and it was at 38%, it really killed my buzz. Some of you may think that I'm foolish to care or lame to check RT that quickly but I enjoy movies and I want every movie to get a fair shake. Some people may not care how much money a movie makes, but I do, because money = sequels and I obviously want sequels to movies I love.
If Captain America ends up with a poor rotten score then so be it. Not the end of the world, it is only a movie for that matter. Of course my insides would be crushed a little, kinda like how I felt for Green Lantern, mostly because I knew it wasn't going to make good money, and I really wanted a sequel so they could get another shot to convince general audiences that Green Lantern is an awesome character. I do think it's interesting how Green Lantern stayed as high as it could on RT until there were just no positive reviews left to keep it afloat, where as Captain America seems like the opposite, like RT is trying to keep it down.
Anyway, this is just a rant I felt like I wanted to talk about. In the end I'll form my own opinion of a movie, I just don't want early negative buzz to reflect into other people's opinions of a film they haven't seen yet, or worse convince a critic the movie is rotten when they otherwise would have loved it. Gotta love peer pressure. Sorry if I sound like a hypocrite, not trying to be. And I don't think this just is about Captain America, I feel like this could happen to a lot of movies. By the way all the Twitter buzz from people who have actually seen it is appears incredibly good.
Not trying to strike any personal chords, just ranting. Sound off below, don't worry I can take it.
PS: By the way my spirits have since been lifted when I read a lot of great reviews including this, I trust these guys and I'm once again really excited.
http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/video-blog-marvels-captain-america-the-first-avenger-kicks-ass/
Also check out this post, it shows a much more accurate representation of what the RT score should be, very interesting.
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=376165