I hope you found this one useful! If you'd like to join my Discord server where we chat about our writing projects, workshop ideas, and generally discuss the movies/shows we love, here's a link you can use to join. My Discord: discord.com/invite/aJpYPQX Keep writing! - Henry

I’ve had a hard time convincing people that it’s simultaneously ok to like bad movies, and also to not like good ones.

I haven’t seen the Mario movie, but from everything I’ve heard, it did exactly what it needed to do. Namely, it placated the Nintendo executives who kept the IP locked away from Hollywood for decades and proved that the film industry could do it justice.

As a plumber myself the Super Mario Bros movie presented in insanely accurate depiction of a plumbers line of work, I myself on multiple occasions have stomped on turtles and tossed giant godzilla like creatures named gay bowser, good work illumination!

It’s a lot like what’s happening right now with the Fnaf movie, with critics calling it shallow and going off on tangents, but most of the fans absolutely loving it because the movie was made for them.

I saw someone online discuss the Mario movie and put it simply. It’s not a very _good_ movie technically speaking, but it’s 90 minutes of straight fun and nostalgia. This is why the critics hated it but fans loved it. As she continued to say, it’s the best 6/10 movie she’s ever seen.

The validity of a critic doesn’t lie in his opinion on a certain piece of art but in the consistency of his voice. I watch a lot of critics on multiple art forms online, some of which I almost never agree with but they’re credible reviewers for me because I’ve looked into and understand what THEY want and look out for when experiencing a certain piece of art. When looking at it with that perspective you can see why someone with that specific point of view would like or dislike something and applying to how much you differ or align with that you can use that review as (nothing more than) an advice on the question “is this art piece worth for me to invest in?”

The most useful reviews, in my mind, are those that say "You'll probably enjoy this if you are or can get into X, Y and Z". Or alternatively, reviews that describe the movie in a manner that you can set your expectations going in, or know it's not for you. The perfect example, for me, was "The Expendables", which one review described along the lines of "consists of nothing more than adrenaline, gunpowder and testosterone". I went in with exactly that expectation and was NOT disappointed. Had I expected something with even a little depth, I would have gotten far less enjoyment out of it, but I went in knowing what I'd get. Same thing, on the other end of the spectrum, was "Dune", which I knew beforehand was complex, a slow burn and not action heavy. Went into the movie with those expectations, and enjoyed it throughout.

I find the Rotten Tomatoes scores very helpful. If there's a big discrepancy between the critics and the users, then that tells you something about the movie. If they both like it, then it's almost certainly going to be worth watching. If the critics love it and the users hate it, it's probably an artsy movie that will only appeal to certain types of people. The target audience explanation doesn't explain it all because critics rate kids movies highly all the time.

Let’s go another Closer Look video

I watched the Mario movie with my nerdy group of friends. We have been playing through Mario games together for years, and we had an absolute blast. We all agree it was definitely not a masterpiece, but it was fun, and that’s what mattered.

I think another issue that often gets ignored is whether a movie is going to be fun for kids. There are a LOT of parents out there who want to share fun, clean movies with their children, but most of the "good" movies according to critics are either inappropriate or would just go over kids' heads. The Mario movie was perfect for kids. I took mine twice, then bought it on Prime the day it came out.

This makes me think about how reader scores for subsequent books in a series tend to get better scores than the original. This is because only people who really liked the first book will take the time to read the next books. The people who would give the sequels bad reviews remove themselves from the pool of reviewers.

I think Mario did a thing that no movie ever did before: it adapted a game and kept true to its original source, rewarding its fanbase instead of a studio being pretentious enough to think they need to "fix it" doing their own thing

This is one of the reasons I almost roll my eyes when someone praises a film because “it has a bit of something for everyone”. I don’t want a film that’s going to try and please everyone, I’d rather a film cater to its strengths and go all in on appealing to certain people.

The problem with Rotten Tomatoes, was that it turns out companies really WERE buying off professional critics for positive reviews and ratings. In other words, never trust a positive rating on any review site, Rotten Tomatoes especially.

Not to mention that most people think that the percentage is the average score given by critics (WHICH ITS NOT). It is an approval rating. If it has a 65%, it means that 65% of critics gave it a passing score, and 35% didn't. Out of that 65%, maybe half of them are 10/10, and most people won't even know.

Roger Ebert was my go-to critic. His approach was simple: Does the movie do what it set out to do, and does it do it well? That's how a movie like "Booty Call" got a three-star review.

The Mario games were my entire childhood and i was smiling/laughing throughout the entire movie. It was an incredible experience to me.

It's not that the critics are not the target audience. It's that the critics readers are of a particular target audience.

Your explanation of what the critic's true role in society is was absolutely spot-on

I do agree with a lot that is said in the video but I just wanna warn people that if you only listen to people who agree with you, you have to take a step back when facing something or someone you don't agree with. They are not necessarily wrong, and you are not necessarily right either, you just don't agree and that is fine. Keep in mind that the world is complex and full of nuances. Not agreeing can be the starting point of one of the most interesting and stimulating conversation of your life.

The easiest way to fix rotten tomatoes critics seems to be to just simply speciate them, and let them watch movies of genres _they like,_ rather than forcing them to watch movies they don't care about and predictably leading to them bashing it into the dirt.

Great video, very well said. I've realized a similar thing with gaming. So many highly rated AAA video games come out that don't appeal to me very much even if they're technically good, it's all a matter of taste.

When I hear people saying stuff like "the age of the film critics is over", I always associate it with critics in mainstream media, who are either bought and paid for or desperately trying not to upset the industry that provides them with previews. I'll generally listen to anyone who paid for the ticket with their own money, which is why everyday self made content creators are infinitely better than shills from the big established media outlets.

I feel SO validated that Hot Fuzz was your B-roll while talking about how “…a film can be-objectively speaking-a bloody masterpiece that is perfectly made.” It’s been my favorite movie of all time since I saw it, and I watch it every year around my birthday. I haven’t met anyone who feels remotely the same about Hot Fuzz; I typically get “huh? never heard of that one” or “really? It was alright, but I’m surprised it’s anyone’s ‘favorite of all time.’” It’s the best thing ever put to filmstock (in my personal subjective opinion). 🤩

I disagree that you should stop listening to people you don't agree with. It's like what they say about outside art. Listening to people you don't agree with and understanding their opinions helps you gain a new appreciation for pieces of art you don't like, and help you cherish the art that you do like, all the more.

Excellent points. I will say that I am old enough to remember a time when there seemed to be no critics that liked nerdy movies; superhero, sci-fi, etc. I wonder if it might help current critics to list a variety of movies they've seen and liked, so readers of that critic can make a decision much like you suggested.

This is the equivalent to game developers listening to hardcore players and esports professionals on what needs to change in their game, sure it may be from a professional viewpoint, but the change will most likely lead to what will eventually become a boring experience for everyone else, a strict experience isn't always the best option.

Nice to hear a more elaborate take on this problem. I stopped caring about score reviews a while ago. What I want to know from a review is both "What does this creative work try to do?" and "How well does it actually do it?", and that's basically all of it. Even when score reviews evaluate a thing on different standardised metrics (sound/visuals/story,...), it doesn't tell me anything about what is that core idea that might make me love that thing.

You are far more than a critic, you're a teacher and in a totally different league.

I love how poetic it is that you basically take the role of the critic, not only of the movies you watch but also of the critics you read/listen to

This was a good video and helped me understand the difference between the critic rating and the consumer rating. I had been wondering for a while why they could be so different, now it makes more sense.

6:47 to be fair to other movie critics, Grace has pretty bad takes most of the time anyway.

Critics and audience members do have different perspectives on films of course. But sometimes you have to wonder if you even saw the same film as the critics when you see some of the reviews.

Perfect analysis in my opinion. I have been using RT in this way. If it is a genre that I like, I use the audience score. If it is a genre that I'm less keen on I use the critic score. This tends to give me reasonably satisfactory results when viewing the film.

You're also forgetting Rotten puts its finger on the scale for companies it likes.

I think the problem is two fold. One, critics have been proven to get benefits from overpraising films that don’t deserve it, or at least mitigate consequences for themselves, after all, companies are likely to invite you to early screenings if you’d likely say it’s the best movie of the year. The other case I often find is sheer ego. Whether it’s overpraising a film that appeals to their political sensibilities, over criticizing a film that isn’t what they wanted it to be, or being intensely bias against a type of film due to preconceived notions *cough cough animation* . The idea of just meeting a film on its own terms seems alien to most of them. What doesn’t help the matter is that general knowledge on story structure and critique is more common, thereby creating a bunch of “film critics” who frankly have no idea what they’re doing and are too stuck up to see it. Additionally it also means that we can see a lot of these subpar critics for what they are, and the audience who isn’t so educated on film structure and such puts vastly less weight on film critics, simply due both to supply and demand and the increasing amount of hack film critics means there’s less faith put in them as a whole. Edit: the animation disrespect is more so for the snobs behind big award shows, the big example is the Oscars

In one of the last seasons of Barry, there was a plot point about Rotten Tomatoes scores. The girl had made a TV show that initially got a 100% on RT so she thought it would definitely end up being a hit. But then it was immediately canceled. When she asked why, they basically told her only one person had watched it. And that person happened to give it a 100% score when they reviewed it for Rotten Tomatoes.

13:55 Everything you said here boils down to "Surround yourself in an echo chamber". I'm sure this works for other people, but this is the exact opposite advice I'd ever give to anyone, ever, period.

Your advice about finding the right critic for you really reminds me of another piece of advice I heard once. I'm an aspiring author, so I've heard almost exactly the same thing about - at least where self-publishing is concerned - how you have to find the right editor for the kind of story you're trying to tell, or the changes they're going to suggest are going to do more harm than good.

If critics are unable to review a movie with the intended audience in mind, then they provide absolutely no added value to anything and are, in fact, completely useless.

The conclusion here is exactly what I've been telling people to do for years. I've got a series of movie critics I follow that share my tastes, I've got a set of video game reviewers I follow who share my taste. I should probably find some book reviewers as well. You should do it for all forms of art that you're into. I also use the RT viewer scores as a (very) rough gauge as well. And if both critics and viewers overwhelmingly love it, then it's probably a pretty special movie regardless of being outside of my typical preferences and worth another consideration.

Hey man. I love your work. Ive been saving MANY of your vids in in a writing refrence video. Your work will always be needed as long as stories continue to be told. Lets hope,,better, lets pray a time never comes thats so dark as to not permit storys.

Rotten Tomatoes brings out the worst in people by aggregating scores into a vague averages percentage. People see that percentage and then disregard every single critic as they're all the same individual, even though anything aside from a 0% or a 100% means that a lot of those individuals have differing opinions about the movie. It's kind of frustrating to witness it happen time and time again.

Even moreso, it's not 98% of the audience who loved it, but 98% of the audience who are also Rotten Tomatoes reviewers. We are talking about a fraction of a fraction, a very small sample size, and yet they treat it like it's 98% of EVERYONE who saw it, and that's just completely unrepresentative. It's kind of like, how by calling low-fat milk 1% and 2%, the implication is that whole milk must be 100% when in reality it's just between 3% and 5%

Mate, you make some very valid points. But I think the last few years have shown us that there is a clear and undeniable bias by critics when a movie does not have an agenda, which has lead to them completely losing their credibility. Two examples of this are The Joker and RoP. The Joker was attacked by critics and they made a huge fuss about it. RoP is the saddest attempt at fanfic but it has an incredibly high critic score. Established critics deserve the flak they are getting. That being said, it is KZfaq critics who people are moving to for in-depth analysis and recommendations. Critics are not dying, only the industry bred ones are.

Excellent video. I especially liked your breakdown on how to use critics as a resource. I do something similar, but rather that whittle a total list of critics down to a few, I have figured out which sort of critical observations are important to me and which are superfluous. I am then able to read multiple critic’s reviews and get a better prediction of my enjoyment of said film by observing that critics priorities.

The crazy thing is, if you ignore the scores and just read the reviews themselves… critics and general audiences actually broadly agree on a lot of the same points (it had super fun animation and sequences, a great score, and lots of references, but it also had crazy rushed pacing, a paper-thin plot, and seriously underbaked character arcs). The difference comes in how much value each aspect holds to a specific reviewer or audience. For most Mario fans, the animation, sequences, and callbacks were SO fun that the lack of any real story just wasn’t an issue. But most critics got very little out of all that stuff, even if they acknowledge those as strengths, and so all they were left with was a very lackluster story. Critics only seem “out of touch with reality” because scores are still (perhaps erroneously) seen as some kind of “objective measurement.” So when a review score doesn’t line up with the general public, a lot of people don’t see, “this critic personally enjoyed the movie this much,” they see, “this critic’s OBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT of the movie’s quality is different from mine, and since I’m a rational human being, disagreeing with me means THEY’RE irrational and dumb!” Especially since critics are held to this standard of being as objective as possible, when imo we should really hold them to being CORRECT about the details thing of the thing they review, not on their opinion of that thing. Criticism is an analysis of the internal moving parts to see how it works and what it’s trying to accomplish. Critics then use that analysis to ultimately support their opinion on a piece of work, but that opinion is still an opinion, even if it’s more detailed, nuanced, and informative than anything user “JohnSmith720NoScopeXD” can write. But “it’s just your opinion” doesn’t have to be the end of the discussion, as it gives people the opportunity to discuss individual points. Even within the target demographic, there are some Mario fans that were seriously underwhelmed by the movie at best and HATED it at worst, to the point where they prefer the 1993 movie! Instead of saying “that’s your opinion” as a statement, we should use it as a question, and answer it ourselves. Like, “that’s your opinion? Well, I disagree on points X,Y, and Z that you brought up, and here’s why.” Also, not entirely sure I agree that people should ONLY listen to critics who’s tastes align with them. While people who have different tastes might not be a good way to judge if you yourself like a thing, there’s still valuable discussion to be had with those people, and they might be able to see some things you yourself missed. Also, many modern cartoons like Amphibia and The Owl House have grown larger followings amongst older audiences (who were probably NOT the intended audience, or at least Disney the company’s intended audience), and may find different levels of success amongst that demographic. Hecc, ignoring the demographic that DID like it is part of what killed the cult classic Invader Zim, and supporting them is arguably why My Little Pony Gen 4 was as massive as it was. All around good video, although slight nitpick: although the description with the “50% love it vs hate” part was basically how Rotten Tomatoes works, it’s not technically an “average score,” mathematically speaking.

If a godsdamned critic cannot put their ego down for 2 hours to do their job as based as possible, then that critic should choose another job. Its called "professionalism".

You might want to give this a reassessment now that RT has been exposed for paying certain critics to give positive/negative reviews to certain movies for the last 5 years. It makes me wonder how many of these "critics" were payed to give the Super Mario movie negative reviews.

I'm a horror fan and I can't tell you know how many times I've seen horror films get bad reviews for being "too violent", then I see them, and they are absolute masterpieces. Then I hear things like "The Menu" is a masterpiece, so I see them and I fall asleep.

Another aspect to keep in mind is what aspect of the movie a person focuses on. Critics are more likely to judge more aspects of a movie than an average watcher. For example, a comedy will mostly be judged on its comedic quality by an average watcher, but on more aspects by a critic. This is also a part of why there can be a big difference.

Makes me laugh when people say 'the movie's good because it made so much money'....no, it means a lot of people went to see it - not the same

Oldboy is indeed a great revenge flick, I just saw it in a theatre recently. I think it's still playing this month

There is something to be said about having movie critics with similar taste to your own. There used to be this podcast I really liked and when it ended I kind of felt I had a hard time finding who I could trust. One downside to some reviews critics give is that they may downplay how bleak a particular movie or aspect of a movie may be, because that bleakness was enough to make them feel something after being so jaded from seeing so many different movies. Whereas that bleakness may be a bit much for the average viewer.

13:10 I feel like watching and reading only critics that agree with you would create a microcosm filled with the same opinions that complement each other and hence maybe would prevent genuine criticism and discourage people from discovering new things. From personal experience, some of the best movies and shows I found were because I started following critics I didn't necessarily agree with. A good critic will help you understand why something is good or bad and would help you discover new things or revisit old things that you maybe didn't like or understand the first time round.

I remember some 15 years ago a friend of mine who was really into music. He hated popular music, the catchy rhythms and big label production sound, it all was terrible to him. At the time I thought he was just being weird. Later on I understood that it was a matter of taste. Masses enjoy eating at MickeyD's but a food critic probably won't be too fond of the cuisine available there. My friend had a refined taste in music and if it wasn't technical and fast and challenging and unique, it wasn't worth listening to. Same applies to pretty much everything. Once you refine your taste enough through time, the regular stuff that is perfectly fine for most people, ceases to satisfy. Having seen thousands of movies I'm looking at things like lighting and editing and complex characterisation etc. That's what hooks me in nowadays more than having a fun two hours with my brain turned off, it is the interesting stuff that entertains me and not the formula mass consumers are satisfied by. The darker side of all of that is that a large quantity of the regular folk who like their McD's don't just like it, but prefer it over a high quality meal.

4:00 that's BS. Put in some woke cliche that has been done 100 times and the critics on rotten tomatoes love it. It's not about that. Just cater a certain political message and you get great critics score. So many out of touch woke BS movies have very bad audience score and great critics score despite being shit movies without any originality

The problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that it's riddled with paid critics, and numerous bots. Can't trust either score.

"art is not some school test" yeah tell that my art teacher

Because critics are mostly full of sh..prejudice :) When was the last time some critic online said something useful, especially on any mass platform like rotten tomatoes or so. As far as I know most of them are corrupt, when comes to a mediocre product from a big companies they give 10/10 .

I would argue that critics should review things from the lens of the target audience. If I’m bald and bought a comb from Amazon, I’m not going to give it a 1 star review because it did nothing for me.

Video summary: Instead of relying on critics in general (such as Rotten Tomatoes), find a specific critic, reviewer, surveyor... anyone who analyzes and provides a somewhat unbiased verdict that shares your tastes in entertainment. How do you find someone that shares your preferences? 1. Trial and error AFTER you enjoyed something greatly; Give every critic a chance to speak about what you enjoyed. 2. Subscribe to those that think like you, dismiss those that do not (bias is not a bad thing in entertainment). 3. Enjoy finding more things to enjoy thanks to folks that find things for you.

Gotta say, I’m very pleased to see someone grasp the power of marketing so well. Well known marketing does not = popularity; most people watch or buy things because of recommendations from people they know than because of ads. But what marketing does that you laid out so well is it picks its target audience. I’ve always believed that the best reviewed stories are always simply the ones that hit their target audiences so well. For every person that gave a 10/10 score, there is another that simply cannot be bothered to experience the story no matter what. To all writers out there, I think that this philosophy of target audience is something to be very conscientious of. You sometimes have to start with the most negative aspect of your story to push away those who wouldn’t enjoy it anyways, and then cater well later to those who are willing to enjoy the lowest part. Though this is one strategy, I’m personally trying a new strategy of balance: I want to write in a way that neither appeals to any group nor pushes away another group. I want the appeal to be neither positive nor negative, but instead simply intriguing. For I believe unbiased intrigue is a very powerful way to attract a large chunk of the audience, avoiding personal preferences that people may have. Also, always be confident in your appeal 👍🏾

The role of the critic in two words "Accurate specificity". Speak only the objective truth and understand your goal in your criticism. There are judges for contests, reviewers to filter out sensitive/graphic topics, communicators giving productive feedback for the artist(or artists in the same field), and a few other specific types of critics. You must not only be completely truthful in your given criticism.....you must be truthful to yourself. Don't put yourself in the role of critic if you do not understand the medium you're examining. It also means you must be mature in how you view, how you reflect, how you critic, and how you receive feedback(both positive/negative equally) regarding the subject of your criticism.

Whew, that's an incredibly engaging, nuanced look at the topic. Thank you so much! On recommending movies being difficult: One of my close friends is an action movie buff and so am I - yet he LOVES the sort of movie protagonist who never, ever has a hard time or gets hurt. Whereas I see struggle as necessary to build stakes and thus engagement. So as a result, he isn't a huge fan of John Wick 4 but loves the third Equalizer which infuriated me to an incredible extent but also forcibly opened my horizons as to how differences can be ludicrously large in effect for such a minor degree of difference.

Although the critics average score is in no way indicative of how good a movie is (objectively or subjectively,) I've learn over the year to use the audiences average score to judge how good a movie is. To be fair, because the score is 100% voluntarily, people who love a movie would be more inclined to score the movie than people who hate it, unless the movie is really bad. So movie score tend to be more positive than negative, but I just adjust the scale. If 50% were supposed to be average, then I would assume 60-70 would be average, 80+ are good movies, and 90+ are great. I would, most of the time, never watch anything below 60 in audience average score.

I agree that having similar tastes to a critic is important in determining whether or not you should listen to them, but I do also think it's valuable to listen to perspectives different from your own. If you watched a movie and you thought it stunk, hearing someone else describe why it connected with them might warm you to it. Conversely, Hearing someone's criticisms of something you may have enjoyed may compell you to defend it, forcing you to explain why it worked for you, reinforcing your love for it, or it can force you to look at what you watch more critically. Either way, listening to different perspectives on the art can help serve to sharpen your critical thinking when it comes to art and art criticism. That's my 2 cents anyway

If I listened to any official reviews by critics of Little Mermaid I would have gone to the movie. But thankfully I did not and I saved myself from ever seeing this crap.

I found The Menu from Critical Drinker's recommendation and it was such a thought provoking film, one I'll remember for years to come.

The problem isn't critics. Its how you are interpreting the RT metascore. If you look at individual reviews, you will likely find some that match fairly closely with you. One person's rating of a movie is largely going to come down to their opinion. The average movie critic is someone who has seen thousands of movies, is not purely interested in entertainment value, and puts a high emphasis on originality. If that describes you, the RT metascore may be helpful as a predictor of whether you will enjoy a film. (It certainly is for me.) Otherwise, it may be better to use the audience score, IMDB score, or find a few critics whose tastes have lined up with yours in the past. (I like Peter Travers.)

This is how I felt about Babylon. I was speechless for 2 hours after watching it. And I looked at the rotten tomatoes score of it and just felt like the critics didn't understand what was being shown to them. They didn't pay it the attention it deserved. From there on I didn't care about Rotten tomatoes

There was one huge thing audiences haven't seen near enough. The Mario movie delivered what it said on the tin. The audiences' expectations were met. I have a difficult time expressing just how important this really is. It's like ordering a bacon cheeseburger and getting tofu soup. I couldn't care one whit less how incredible of tofu it might be, i was really looking forward to that bacon cheeseburger.

Excellent video as always! When I was in college, way back in 1987, I remember Siskel & Ebert said the Keenan Ivory Wayans movie *"I'm Gonna Get You Sucka"* was an absolutely horrible waste of money and that no one should ever watch it. I listened to them and didn't go see it at the theaters. But then in college, we had movie nights and they showed it. I pretty much stayed in the floor laughing so hard that I almost had an asthma attack because I couldn't breathe! That movie remains one of THE funniest movies I've ever seen. Since then, I stopped taking what critics say as a mandate, and just recognize it's just their opinion.

7:39 - Wait, movies are art? I thought movies stopped being art when originality was replaced by a list of ESG score boosting checkboxes to fill and passion was replaced by copy-pasting previously successful formula until it started to to lose money.

You can't trust either scores tbh. Both critic scores and audience scores are routinely manipulated and inflated by bias and other factors. Nothing is trustworthy anymore. You can have critics that give a bad movie a pass because of favoritism with the studio that made it (i.e., Disney) or bash a good movie because of their own stuck-up prejudices, or you can have audiences that flood a movie with positive or negative reviews simply to spite the critics or for politically motivated reasons. Nothing is honest, nothing is genuine, and broader review sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic should all honestly just be ignored from here on out. The only way to approach movies reliably in this day and age is to just watch the trailer and decide for yourself if you want to see it, or find a small group of critics or reviewers whose opinions (and motives) you have good reason to trust and with whom you generally agree.

I feel like secret invasion is an example of how critics can be full of it, sometimes. The mcu has been more comedic, as of late, and the main target audience is mostly kids, and teenagers. When the mcu made a mostly dark and grim tv show, the critics thought it was crap, because the target audience for the mcu has been mostly exposed to comedic films, so doom and gloom isn’t what they want from their marvel shows.

FNAF movie is another example

“Id rather be 9 people’s favorite thing than 100 people’s 9th favorite thing.” - [Title of Show]

Dude i love your videos, you have made my interest in literature, movie and writing analysis skyrocket past anything i thought was imaginable.

If as you say critics care about novelty so much, then how can you explain why critics rated Puss in Boots 2 so highly, huh? You might argue "but it has original animation" to which I'll say Into the Spiderverse did it years before this movie, so it's not like PiB2 invented something. It also has a cliche story and characters. You know why it's highly rated then? Because it's extremely well-done in every way, despite using simplistic and mostly predictable story we've seen many times before.

You should make a video on The Menu, or one that speaks on it. I watched it and couldn't exactly tell what I thought, and your commentary really speaks into how I form my own opinions by making me realize what I liked it for.

This movie basically amounted to, "Look! Those are things I recognise!"

Thank you for verbalized my convictions about the useless blanket term "art is subjective", "art is super individual" is a far more accurate statement.

I can’t agree with this. The point of critics is to see how a given movie compares to all other movies. It’s not about whether they like it or not, just whether it has substance in terms of cinema. Which, Mario doesn’t. It’s not a movie for people who see movies to see movies. It’s a movie for people who like Mario. Critic ratings are right, more often than not, because how movies are received just doesn’t have anything to do with success towards a target audience. That’s like saying snuff films are art because they deeply move disturbing people who love it-obviously that shouldn’t be the case. Audience rating is just “how much did people who liked this movie like it?” Versus the critic rating being “how well does this movie push cinema forward?” So of course Iron Man 1 got good rates for both. It did push the envelope by being a good superhero movie, and the first of the “theme park” flicks by the modern definition. Of course superhero movies of the same quality but made today get worse scores-they aren’t pushing the envelope because it already happened and they haven’t built upon it. These theme park flicks aren’t doing anything in terms of being movies, so of course they should get lower critic ratings. Shouldn’t it be obvious that critic ratings aren’t going to reflect anything about your tastes? It’s not about you, it’s about how relevant the piece is. The Mario movie just, isnt. It’s literally just another theme park flick for a different set of people, people who more or less like games instead of comics. Whether or not it did well for its target audience has *nothing* to do with how relevant the movie is in terms of movies. I need a metric for that. So, critic ratings have greater importance to me. Besides-when it comes to the technique and construction of a given film, *and not its subject matter or substance*, I expect most critics to agree on the same things for all films. If Mario did some new technical trick or some new camera angle in the digital space, that should be a hypothetical point all critics would agree upon, how that would be a good thing for the film. It doesn’t matter whether those critics like the choice stylistically or anything, just whether or not it’s a new/relevant thing for movies. I need an indicator for how “well built” a movie is. I don’t care how well received a thing is by it’s audience because, you’re right, everyone has different tastes, and since no individual can claim to be part of the common man, what the common man likes or doesn’t isn’t relevant to anyone. To use your example of a movie being either a 5/10 that’s remembered deeply by people or a 6/10 that’s mediocre-if the mediocre movie *did something to make critics like it*, meaning it had to have done something new or technically interesting, then *that* is the better film. Quality over substance. I don’t want one critic who reflects my tastes best. I want ten critics who all know what makes a good movie good and a bad movie bad, no matter what the differences between these ten people’s tastes are. Whether any of those critics were touched by the film or not *should absolutely not* be reflected in their scores. If they hated Mario for the Mario part, but liked it for the parts that were new or innovative or interesting-I expect them to give the movie a higher rating than they would if they were recommending it to someone. if there’s a critic who loves Mario, I expect them to give the Mario movie a bad score, because it’s a bad film. It’s good eye candy but that’s it. Conversely, I expect critics who hate movies they see to give those movies higher scores if they push the envelope. Say there’s a critic who hates, and I mean *hates*, irrationally, non-English films. I still expect that guy to give Parasite a high score because that’s the critics job. It’s not about what they feel, it’s what they know. And let’s be real-no public audience knows a good or bad movie when they see one. They just see colors and hear voices and feel feelings. Your average audience doesn’t notice what the camera is doing, they only feel the product of the movement. What they think is irrelevant because they don’t know better. Tl;dr: the critic’s score is how good a movie is if you aren’t familiar with its subject matter, versus the audience score being how good a movie is if you are. The critic scores for Mario and similar theme park movies are correct, because those movies aren’t doing anything in the name of cinema, which is what the critic score represents. Is Mario a good movie? Only if you like Mario. It’s not a good movie if you like movies. The critic rating should never even touch upon whether or not an audience likes the film or not. It’s a reflection upon how well built a movie is, and not its given substance. Because of this, I care more about critic ratings, and more often than not, these scores are accurate. You did nothing to disprove the value of the critic rating to me, nothing to point out how it could be wrong. That critic who never has played a video game but *had* to see Mario gave that movie the correct score, because what that critic thinks about what’s going on in the movie *should have absolutely nothing to do* with anything technical about the movie. It’s not the critics job to tell anyone if the story is good or not. Just the quality. Don’t pretend the metric for what makes a movie good or not is how well the audience receives it. That can never be the case.

7:52 - This is a brilliant question because it also points out the glaring contrast between artists and the industries they end up working for. Corporations that want profit will prefer the second answer, a movie that does okay all across the board and nobody hates. THAT is their ideal movie. Or rather, it's their ideal PRODUCT. 9:26 - This is something I realized a long time ago, and my advice to people who want to know whose reviews to trust, is to simply look for a movie you've already seen and that you LOVE, and look for reviews on it and find someone who says the things about it that YOU would say. Find the reviewers you agree with the most. This is how you find a reviewer who is probably more than likely going to recommend you things that you would enjoy.

Hot Fuzz has always been my favorite film, it was a pleasure to see you include clips from it in this video haha

13:50 i disagree with that. That's just an echo chamber.

I agree and I ignore all critics reviews even on imbd because they now too hide reviews.

Great Video! That was very insightful! Thank you!

This is so enlightening. I was never one to use Rotten Tomatoes anyway. But after getting about 5 and a half minutes into this I went on and looked at some projects I liked and some projects I have not quite scene yet that I expect to like. Audience scores are great even though critics don't like it as much. And I will use critics scores when I am looking for a movie that is new and unique. And I still have 2/3s left to watch.

Amazing video, made me start thinking. Thank you for making this, really appreciate all your videos, and I resonates a lot with you regarding the films as I have watched so much of your work on KZfaq, and Watched some of your recommendations :-)

I think some movies have bad critics because they're forced to dislike these movies for an agenda

at least he admitted he has a bias when saying movie critics are useful.

I am not sure I entirely agree. You make some good points but you also omit some. I also disagree with part of the premise. Yes, a movie has a target audience but, in my opinion, a fantastic movie manages to entertain while maintaining a deeper layer. Not a movie, but I think the Simpsons did a good job at that. Also, a lot of the old Disney movies reiterated classic themes like the heroes journey without being goofy or cliché, while entertaining 6 year olds. Moreover there is something like bad writing, meaning plot holes, annoying messaging, catering to ``target audiences" in an incompetent way. There is something like a well-written shallow action movie. What they usually have in common is an interesting villain that makes you think after you left the movie theatre. And no, the solution can not be to just listen to critics that keep you in your bubble. That would make life so dull, don't you agree? I will omit listing the point that you omitted. This would get political.

Another issue with Rotten Tomatoes is its scoring formula. A film which gets all 5.5/10 is 100% fresh just like a film which gets all 10/10. They purposely designed the scoring so that it produces big numbers disregarding how the formula affects the usefulness of those numbers. It’s designed to create headlines which is why Rotten Tomateos became more popular than IMDB.

14:15 is a huge point, one that I've noticed in many maturing media. Whether it is TV, Movies or Video Games, it feels like they've settled into "big business" mode. When you involve massive amounts of money moving around, you can bet there's either something shady sneaking it's way in (money laundering, fraud, corruption, etc), or investors demanding far more control over the creative process to "ensure their return". It becomes less about telling a good story or creating an engaging experience, and more about "how do we make sure to make back our $200 million dollars?" This is why I get excited when I hear of technological advancements in cinematic and gaming tools, like Blender or Unreal updates. Things that put what used to take hundreds of people, and millions of dollars, into the hands of a small team or even a single dedicated person. Because while the risk is VERY high that that single dedicated person might fail, or make something only a handful of people care about.. It is precisely what Art is supposed to be about. Those handful of people may have their lives changed. And the risk of trying untested things is how innovation happens, and how new genres are created and we can become excited about things again.

Here is the question your video raises though: Why isn't there a "checkbox" on Rotten tomatoes for critics to state if that movie in question was one that they would have watched even if it weren't for the sake of being a critic? That would give you two scores then: An overall critic score (that can give you a hint about the movies overall quality) and a score of critics that are in the target audience (which should give you a better correlation with the general population...)

I love your take on this! I love movies but not many because I get bored very easily. But often I watch a movie and then watch some reviews on KZfaq and some people on here are great. But some are really just nitpicking to the extreme, completely forgetting why a movie was made. Not every Film I see, I expect to be a masterpiece of cinema But often it seems like that is what many critics I have watched seem to expect from any given movie. So with some movies I just decide not to watch any critics review it because it would just Ruin a perfectly good experience for me. But overall I am really thankful that critics exist because they shed light to a problem that is getting bigger: Much of the Budget of many movies is invested in the best CGI and whatever But therefore the story lacks majorly and the writing and characters are just overall kind of bad and uninteresting. And to criticise that is important because I do hope that it will change something in the future