Whenever there's a buzzed-about pre-release thread on these boards, there are tons of people chiming in with the Tomatometer reading. I never understood this.
Why do we need the Tomatometer? Sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are useful catch-alls for all the reviews we can read about a movie. But not all critics are created equal. And you've democratized opinions by adding Roger Ebert to the loud review engine that includes Hart Harklesy of the Whistlestop Gazette*, whose analysis extends to, "I ate my popcorn and had a good time!"
Moreover, there's no way to judge these opinions. The Tomatometer simply reads a review and considers it a "good" or "bad" review. As if there are only two results to any movie. And it's silly in that it endorses groupthink of the worst kind - does a movie that "scores" 92% belong in the pantheon of classics? No, it just means 92% of critics TOLERATED it. There have been several "high scoring" movies that were met by most with a collective shrug. And there are several films that are "growers," movies that need time to percolate, time that a lot of professional critics don't have when they have to pen a review by a deadline. That leads to, say, the flood of negative notices for something like The New World. The best reviews of a movie discuss what it's about, what it's REALLY about, whether it succeeds on its own terms, and whether it succeeds on the very personal terms of the writer. It's a key to the movie, but you have to open the door yourself.
Metacritic is a little better, but I don't understand reading an interesting, loaded review and then saying, "Oh, that felt like a 72." It's just arbitrary.
Can we just collectively ignore this stupid system?
*Not a real thing.
