Should Rotten Tomatoes itself be given a splat, or certified fresh?
To be clear: not the site or service itself, more what it represents.
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If youve not had the pleasure, Rotten Tomatoes is genuinely an excellent resource.
Because what Rotten Tomatoes does is aggregate reviews.
And certainly the most influential right now.
Then, it also comes up with a Tomatometer score.
At the time of originally writing, the score forSuicide Squadstands at 33%.
This, in the parlance of Rotten Tomatoes, is a splat.
A splat, let me tell you, is not what movie marketing departments want to hear about.
The criteria is relaxed slightly for limited release films.
Not how positive or negative: just whether the critic concerned like the film or show, or otherwise.
Thats unlike Metacritic, which averages out the actual scores given to productions.
With Rotten Tomatoes, how much a reviewer likes a film isnt relevant.
And nobody at Rotten Tomatoes needs to see the film or show itself to determine that.
Theres a simple bottom line here: decisions are being made about films based on their Rotten Tomatoes score.
Thats whether we liked it or not.
Such conversations are now not uncommon.
We didnt, but for a reason.
Den Of Geek US has signed up, and I fully understand why.
It really is a service with merit, after all.
Its just that personally, I struggle with it.
Just as filmmakers would rather have a fuller response than a picture of some fruit and that aforementioned number.
That, as weve seen withSuicide Squad, it becomes just about that one score.
Suicide Squad has 33% on Rotten Tomatoes?
It must be bad, goes the argument.
And maybe it is.
But the question at the start: is Rotten Tomatoes good for movies?
It depends, really.
If its the line between a film getting made or not?
Ive got all sorts of alarm bells there.
If its a help in choosing what to watch?
Its hard to grumble too much.
Going back to that petition, then: its clearly doomed to failure.
Feel free to rate this article a splat at your leisure…
