Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer has become a mainstay in today’s age of cinema and has become a double-edged sword for the Hollywood film industry. Created by Shen Duong in 1998, it has been used to rate and rank films for nearly 20 years and in 2016 was purchased by Fandango, an online movie ticket vendor that is now a popular and primary source for fans and moviegoers alike. However, since 2016, Fandango has displayed the Rotten Tomatoes rating on every movie that is featured on the website or app in order to provide more information about the quality of the movie. Due to recent yet gradual price increases in movie-going experiences, consumers are becoming more and more wary of what they are spending on. Over the past few years entertainment experiences have become largely diversified and with the mass adoption and popularization of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and other streaming services, fewer and fewer people are stepping out to go to a movie. This has, in turn, triggered the aforementioned movie ticket price increases but also has indirectly supplanted more importance to the reviews and ratings of movies that compete in the box office.
Therefore, it is important to analyze just how Rotten Tomatoes’ ranking system works. There are currently 3 tiers of scoring, a film can be rotten when between 0-60% of its critics give a positive review, fresh when 60-100% of reviews given are positive, and certified fresh when 70% of reviews are positive and there are 80 or more reviews in which 5 or more are given by top critics. However not all of the 3,000 active critics will review the same movie and critics are given the freedom to review whatever movie they want, thereby introducing slight biases since they will be eliciting their own preferred styles, genres, and etc for a type of movie and movies they watch that don’t necessarily fit their own preferred structure are likely to get a lower rating.
The next part of the scoring comes down to the average score. There can be a film that has a higher average critic score, but a lower overall percentage score because of the sole reason that there was less agreement on the quality of the film. Meanwhile, a film can have a lower average critic score but a higher overall percentage score. The majority of audience members pay more attention to the overall score and do not really look at the average critic score, this means that Rotten Tomatoes is placing an emphasis on having more consensus among critics that are reviewing the movie and not necessarily the actual quality.
In conclusion, it is important to remember that Rotten Tomatoes can be used as a guide and is a valuable service that helps us decide on what movie to what as well as how well movies are made. However, it is still a subjective tool and ratings can vary by any little thing, therefore it may be a good idea to take that rating with a grain of salt and buttered popcorn!
