Rotten Tomatoes is still my favourite site for film reviews. You get a percentage score for each film, a summary of each review, and – most importantly – a link to the original reviews themselves.
But every now and then it drives me mad. It scores each movie solely on the basis of how many positive reviews it has, but it doesn’t give any weighting to each review. So if 100/100 reviewers quite like a film (and give it say 3 stars out of 5), it gets the same score – 100% – as it would if 100/100 reviewers absolutely adore the film (and give it say 5 stars out of 5). So a bland, unprovocative film that managed to mildly please most critics would get a very high score.
This is what set me off last week: I went to see Moneyball partly on the basis that it got 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yes, it’s a well-made and thought-provoking film; but it’s also boring, over-long, and not half as funny or intelligent as it should be. This is what the Rotten Tomatoes scoring system can do.
(Maybe I am unjustifiably taking it out on this innocent website. It still got a staggering 87% on Metacritic. Maybe, in this case, it’s the critics themselves who are almost universally wrong. How can Robbie Collin at the Daily Telegraph call it ‘an accomplished, bracingly intelligent film that scores points on all fronts…’?!)
The solution to this problem? Do what Metacritic does. Instead of just adding up the number of positive reviews a film gets, give a certain weighting to each review according to how positive the reviewer was. They also (I’ve just found out) give some reviewers greater weight – as if they trust their judgment more than others. And, it has to be said, the site is really crisp and beautiful – unlike the Rotten Tomatoes site.
Here is the explanation:
A peek behind the curtain
Creating our proprietary Metascores is a complicated process. We carefully curate a large group of the world’s most respected critics, assign scores to their reviews, and apply a weighted average to summarize the range of their opinions. The result is a single number that captures the essence of critical opinion in one Metascore. Each movie, game, television show and album featured on Metacritic gets a Metascore when we’ve collected at least four critics’ reviews.
Why the term “weighted average” matters
Metascore is a weighted average in that we assign more importance, or weight, to some critics and publications than others, based on their quality and overall stature. In addition, for music and movies, we also normalize the resulting scores (akin to “grading on a curve” in college), which prevents scores from clumping together.
How to interpret a Metascore
Metascores range from 0-100, with higher scores indicating better overall reviews. We highlight Metascores in three colors so that you can instantly compare: green scores for favorable reviews, yellow scores for mixed reviews, and red scores for unfavorable reviews.
Why do I stay with Rotten Tomatoes? Simply because the UK site gives you reviews from the UK press, which Metacritic doesn’t, and lists the films under their UK launch date – so you can see what is out this week. If there were a UK Metacritic I would switch to it immediately. And if I had time I’d set about developing one. Maybe there is some money to be made here…
All sounds like a case of lies, damn lies and statistics! Disappointment is the gap between what we expect and what we get. I’d stop reading the reviews and either let someone else see the movie first and ask them what its like, or find a cinema that sells good ice cream – that way if the movie is rubbish at least the ice cream is good!!
I’ve never heard of either of the sites you mention. I thoroughly endorse Tonia’s suggestion about asking someone who has seen the movie first. I would also suggest trying to find a nice, of beat cinema where the seats are good – aswell as the ice cream:)
Fr. Can I ask why you don’t refer to the IMDB? I find their user/audience-based scores to be very reliable overall; when it comes to production/artistic values anyway (I refer to the USCCB and other Christian sites for the moral and spiritual perspective). Anything over a 7/10 is usually worth a watch. Anything 8/10 or over usually indicates something of award-winning quality. For something more light-hearted: a comedy or family film something above 6/10 is also usually worth a watch (on a rainy day!).
I always forget about IMBD for reviews – thanks for reminding me. I want to blog about the USCCB site soon; there is nothing like it in the UK (I think…)
I tried getting a site up and running (www.soulfoodcinema.com) but it wasn’t financially viable to do so full-time, and I didn’t (and still don’t) have the time to run it part-time. I may re-launch it in some way in the future though.
Regarding UK Christian reviews, as far as I know the only options are:
http://www.thinkingfaith.org/index.htm
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?NewsSectionId=20
http://www.damaris.org/media
And reading the weekly Catholic Herald newspaper.
However, with the exception perhaps of Damaris, none of these sources particularly probe the moral and spiritual aspects of films; they tend to be secular reviews under a Catholic banner.
The trouble with trying get reliable Christian movie reviews for all films on general release, is that there are so many poor films in our cinemas that you would have to pay someone to sit and review them. One solution would be to partner with an American site to use their reviews, on the agreement of providing them with reviews of films released here in the UK – that might provide a full spectrum of reviews.
Thanks Mark – very helpful
I find Rotten Tomatoes ultimately more reliable for the same problem that you have with it. I consult with the “Tomatometer” to see how many people liked it–not to see *how much* they liked it.
If it is “Certified Fresh” then I know it’s worth a see because then it is more likely that I will enjoy the film. I can make up my own mind on how much I enjoyed it.
Additionally, I would not like to see any reviewers get any greater weight in the default score. Here is where I also greatly prefer RT to Metacritic: Rotten Tomatoes has the default percentage score labeled “All Critics” and another percentage score for “Top Critics”–or those who are typically the reviewers most people look for (ex: Roger Ebert or Peter Rainer).
Finally, if you’re still interested in graded reviews like Metacritic in opposition of the number of positive reviews given–underneath the large percentage (for both All Critics and Top Critics) it says how many reviews were counted and the **Average Rating** which does the same scoring factor as Metacritic.
(P.S.: If you are also interested in general public opinions it has a percentage labeled for “Audience” and an “Average Rating” for it too. )
I’d never noticed the ‘average rating’ figure!! Dumb…