Here in Canada, when we had our Federal Elections, I remember some places in the country being strictly for the NDP Party or the Conservative Party. Yet when news came in from the east that the Maritimes voted unanimously for the Liberal Partyu, pretty much the rest fell in line. To a degree, that's what I think happened to Warner Bros' movies in 2016 because this is the first year I keep seeing this line of dialouge: "Film critics don't matter and neither do their reviews, go watch if for yourself."
To a degree it's right, I mean film critics don't matter. Yeah, they do watch hundreds of movies a year and can clearly tell what is quality and what is shit, but... they watch movies for a living, who the [frick] are they to tell me what I should think is good or not? So bearing that in mind, it's a true fact that critics are starting to lean towards poles nowadays because flashy titles are what catches peoples attention. After all, more people look at the Tomatometer than the average rating of the film. Most of the time, either a movie sucks or it rocks. Either a sucky review gets our attention or an amazing one does. Remember? Josh's glowing review of Ghostbusters? Remember Roeper's review where he trashed it?
While Disney has become the poster child for 2016 in terms of glowing reviews, Warner Bros has become the poster child in terms of crappy reviews. No, Disney is probably not paying film critics and at this point, I'd wager newspapers aren't either.
How To be Single:
This one had a fairly good box office performance, mixed to negative reviews but let's face it - it would have gotten this no matter the studio. This is one of those movies I couldn't tell you which studio made it, so yeah, I looked it up.
Midnight Special:
Pretty much a glorified indie movie that got good reviews but terrible box office. So yeah, Warner Bros' first two movies of 2016 aren't stinkers but they aren't winners either.
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice:
This is the movie that I'm talking about when I say it suffered from the Justin Trudeau effect. The first few reviews were negative, there were postive but they were outweighed by the negative. After all, people forget the score having pretty much started out as 45% on Rotten Tomatoes. You see people missed that it was mixed and divisive like Man of Steel because the negativity packed a punch and as a result the score dropped 18% and now we have that jackass on this site who always goes "dogshit" on every article mentioning this film.
Barbershop: The Next Cut:
I mean it was really funny but as for box office, well... it beat it's budget?
Keanu:
See Barbershop: The Next Cut.
The Nice Guys:
See Keanu.
The Conjuring 2:
Warner Bros' first box office success and critical hit of the year. I haven't seen it but horror fans tell me it's scary, which isn't surprising because they generally tend to frequent movies rated 3-6 on IMDB. So Warner Bros, that's one hit and six losses this year?
Central Intelligence:
Another critical hit and commercial hit, wow, things really look to be picking up for WB!
The Legend of Tarzan:
Another critical mess but whether it will become a commercial hit or not depends on whether it hits $400 million. It appears it will, but who knows? However, this one actually hits me hard because none of the reviews actually judged the film. Does it deserve it's 36% rating? Hell no. This deserves two times that, which would be at least 72%. Yes, this should have gotten fresh. It is not a bad movie, but all the reviews focused on how racist it was, white man saves a black jungle, white saviour and other bullshit. I'm black. This is not a racist movie. Hell, the freaking critics in Africa are making fun of you guys for calling this film racist. Just like the Zimbabweans were when Cecil got his ass shot.
Lights Out:
It was pretty good, but with that budget, there's no way this wouldn't be a success.
Suicide Squad:
I don't even want to talk about it, because it's so fresh (but also not) and just hurts that much. Why the [frick] can't DC make a good movie? Part of me really wants to believe that critics hate DC Comics. It's not surprising, I mean after all, it's because of The Dark Knight that they got a slew of "grim and gritty films and reboots". Hell, ciritics blamed Fant4stic on Josh Trank trying to make something like The Dark Knight, said X-Men: Apocalypse suffered from a Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice syndrome, Conan the Barbarian, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Spectre, TRON Legacy and the newest Godzilla. Not all of thsoe are critically panned, but those that are, well they are because they tried to be grim, gritty and appealing cause it's dark. Those that were well received were held back because of the "darkness cause it's cool". All of that makes me really want to believe that critics hate DC Comics, that they hate them. But, I can't say that for sure and so thus, all I can say is either this movie sucks or critics have actually finally become irrelevent.
Future:
I'm not feeling too optimistic for Warner Bros right now given that their only succesful movies this year have been horror films. I mean, War Dogs looks good but it'll probably end up like The Nice Guys. Sully seems like a typical Tom Hanks Oscar-attempt affair, Storks actually looks fun and hopefully does good. Hell I've become cynical haven't I? Why is it that I feel Wonder Woman will only get a fresh rating for the same reason Ghostbusters did? Why is Live By Night the only future WB film I know will be good 100%? Why do I feel so cautious to be hyped for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?
Well, make mine Marvel cause for some reason, the other side keeps breaking my heart.