Last week, thousands of "Suicide Squad" fans petitioned for the termination of Rotten Tomatoes, a film critic aggregation website, after it gave the DC film a "rotten" review; as of August 9, 2016, 26 percent of critics like it. The creator of the petition, Abdullah Coldwater, said on the petition that "the aim of the petition is to deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people disagree with their reviews." On Rotten Tomatoes, 71 percent of fans liked the film.
A review with the response of this magnitude comes only from the fact that there was such a massive fan base that clashed with the review. According to boxofficemojo.com, "Suicide Squad" grossed over $133 million over the past weekend, and if that seems like a surprise despite the low critical rating, it's happened before this year. "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" received 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and boxofficemojo.com reports that that film grossed over $166 million over the first weekend over $330 million in total, all despite the poor reviews that have clearly shaped how we anticipate films, as proven by the petition.
Hollywood is very different now than it was before. Consistently original material was given out with no promises of sequels. Now, there are movies that contain stories you're familiar with, maybe so familiar that there has already been a part of the franchise that you've already seen before, and now you have to see this one so that you'll understand the next one. We are more than ever inclined to pick specific movies over others despite the actual quality of the movie.
Instead of using Rotten Tomatoes as a crutch, we can use it as an asset. Of course, in this "everyone's a critic world", nowadays we use reviews to be juxtaposed with our own. However, the purpose of a review is for someone to tell you about a movie so that you can see if you're interested enough to go yourself. Think of the serf who would test the food for poison before the king eats it.
However, in the current day, the review is, unfortunately, irrelevant. We no longer watch movies if they are good; we watch movies if the next one will come out next year. Call it a very long-term instant gratification.
What gets left on the side are the movies that are actually reviewed well but are ignored because of their smale scale. Opening alongside "Suicide Squad" last weekend was the indie dramedy "Don't Think Twice," a study of a New York City improv group. This film scored a whopping 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, tripling "Suicide Squad"'s rating. The box office gross? $373 thousand, only getting .3 percent as much as "Suicide Squad.:
Of course, that's not to say that there's an inverse effect of critical approval and box office gross. "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" scored 94 percent and holds the domestic box office record with over $936 million grossed. There is an irrelevance there, though; critical review is just not a factor, and the petition is an example of how it only becomes a factor in mockery of its lack of being a factor.
