Is Rotten Tomatoes Rotten?

Okay. Perhaps the title is a bit hyperbolic. I don’t actually think that Rotten Tomatoes, as a site or as a concept, is actually “rotten.” That said, it is worth questioning the ways in which we – as artists, as businesses, and as viewers – use the tools it provides. Specifically, the “Tomato-meter” (both critical and audience). Are we using it correctly? Abusing it? Is it enhancing our viewing experience or detracting from it?

Let’s discuss…

How it Works

So, for that lone soul out there who has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about and might think I’ve had a stroke as I discuss fruit and movies in the same breath: Rotten Tomatoes is a popular movie review website that consolidates both written reviews and numerical scores for damn near every movie ever made. The idea is that potential viewers can go to the website, look up a film, and get an idea of what they can expect from a viewing – if the movie looks like something that interests them and if it lived up to the expectations of the audience.

In theory, all of this is absolutely wonderful. It takes a useful concept – the movie review – and raises it to a new level. No longer are people bound to a single opinion in the local paper, nor are they forced to scour around the web looking for individual reviews. Instead, they can go to one central location and get information at a glance. That said, this “at a glance” part is also its biggest weakness…

Scoring a Movie

No, I’m not talking about crafting a musical score to enhance the mood and atmosphere of a scene. Instead, I’m talking about the idea of boiling an entire cinematic work down to a numerical digit between 0 and 100. About taking countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears and reducing them to something calculable. Something easy to digest.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that movies shouldn’t be given scores or that this is a new concept. Whether it was out of five stars, ten, or one hundred, critics have always strived to simplify and quickly convey their opinions on a work to the general public. In turn, the general public, harried from day-to-day life, typically looks for the most basic distillation as to if a given artistic work is worth their time and attention. Therefore, putting a number on it – of stars or digits – is perhaps the most efficient way of accomplishing this goal.

Of course, the downside of this methodology is that each individual score is merely the reflection of a single person’s opinions on the matter. One data point in an ocean of experience. To give it more weight than that would be to greatly over-exaggerate its importance (which is not to say that some opinions might not be more rooted in knowledge or fall closer to your own personal tastes). At least, that USED to the case… enter Rotten Tomatoes.

You see, unlike a typical review website that posts a single review per film, usually written by a dedicated critic or team of critics, Rotten Tomatoes scours the web and collates reviews from critics across the spectrum – showing both their numerical scores, if those scores qualify as “rotten” or “fresh” based on Rotten Tomatoes’ internal scale, and giving the reader a brief snippet of the total review (which can usually be read by clicking an included link). Moreover, not only does the site do this for critical scores, but it also allows regular audience members the ability to post their own scores (and reviews) and averages THEM into their own separate score – the aptly named “Audience Score.”

In this way, Rotten Tomatoes is able to average out hundreds of scores into one single number (well, two – one for critics and one for audience members). It can take the whole of provided experience with a film and distill it into one clean data point.

It follows, then, that this number must tell you – the viewer – how GOOD a movie actually is? Right?

Good or Bad?

Wrong. No single number can tell you if a movie, or ANY piece of art for that reason, is “good” or not. Not only is the entire concept of good subjective, but your experience with a piece of media is also intensely personal. You can still love something that’s “bad.” You can hate a “great” movie. You can be incredibly neutral. So, lest we get it confused, the scores do NOT tell you if a movie is good or bad (with some exceptions)… but used correctly, they CAN give you an indication of if YOU might like a movie.

After all, if you’re excited to see or movie (or, on the other extreme, have ZERO interest in seeing it), you should never let the opinions of others dissuade you. See it (or don’t) for yourself and make up your own mind. Be autonomous and think for yourself. That doesn’t mean to ignore outside data or information… it just means use it wisely.

How to Use the Tomato-meter wisely

I’ve found that the best possible usage of the tools that Rotten Tomatoes provides is in deciding on a film that I could go either way on. A film in which my desire to see it or not isn’t strong in either direction. It’s in those cases that I find the opinions of others most useful.

For instance, the critics can tell me whether or not (as someone who has seen a lot of movies) the film manages to hit the right story beats, whether the acting is any good, or if the production value or cinematography blew them away. They can tell you if a film – as a cinematic work – is “well made.”

The audience, on the other hand, while they can mention these things, is usually more concerned as to if the film lived up to their expectations of entertainment. Was it exciting? Scary? Romantic? Funny? Did they, as someone who PAID for the privilege of seeing the movie, feel it was worth their hard-earned cash and time? Because, unlike critics (who typically see most movies that come out whether they’re interested or not), most audience members go to see a movie because it already seems like something that interests them – that suits their tastes. In that way, the audience score doesn’t really tell you if something is a “good movie,” it tells you if the intended audience ENJOYED it.

It is then by using these two metrics in tandem, and comparing them against one another, that I typically make a decision. (If both mirror one another, that tells me one thing. If they differ, yet another.) By juxtaposing them along with my own gut instinct, I am then usually able to decide if a movie is something I want to see, something I’ll wait for on home media, or something I’ll skip entirely. I use the scores as TOOLS to aid my own opinions as opposed to the end-all, be-all metrics.

The Exceptions

That said, every rule has an exception that proves it. In the case of Rotten Tomatoes, those exceptions are (for me): films where both the critical AND audience scores are either over 90% or under 20%. In these cases, a preponderance of evidence points toward the quality (or lack thereof) of the film in question. As such, in these extreme cases of agreement on both sides, I am apt to take the general consensus as truth and either see (or skip) the discussed media.

Though, again, like all things in life – there are exceptions to the exceptions. While the above will and has dissuaded me from seeing certain films, it’s not a hard and fast rule. If I still want to see it or skip it, I do.

I just usually find in those cases that the movie lives up to its reputation. Hence, the exceptions.

Studios – Marketing on Score

The final point I’d like to make on Rotten Tomatoes, and one that didn’t fit neatly in the other categories, is the way that it has become such an abused marketing tool for the studio system when it comes to promoting their films.

Don’t get me wrong – movies have long used good reviews and quotes to sell themselves to the general public. In that way, it would seem to make perfect sense to then use the newest metric – the amalgamation of ALL the reviews – to inform the public about the quality of a film (especially as so many take said score as an absolute indicator of merit). Of course, while being selective with the quotes they use in the marketing campaign has long been a staple of such endeavors, the Tomato-meter has taken this to whole new extremes…

I can’t tell you the number of recent movies that I’ve seen promoting themselves as 100%, 99%, or 98% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes. Where this actually the case, while perhaps repetitive, I’d have no issue with such usage. Unfortunately, more often than not, this is a clever bit of misdirection and half-truth. You see, what studios will do is take the high-level metric from the site at a time in which only a few reviews (some of them perhaps even sponsored) are even posted. After all, it’s not hard to have 100% when there are only 5 reviews. And, since they weren’t technically lying (the movie DID at one point have a 100% score), it allows studios to give off a false and vastly inflated indication of the quality of a film – banking on the fact that many people will take them at their word and not then double-check the site itself.

And all this is beside the “incentives” that are offered to some film’s creative teams if (and only if) the movie hits certain benchmarks on the Tomato-meter. As if an entire movie’s worth can be neatly summed up in a single-digit or that the creative team has ANY control over such matters. Essentially, the buy-in from the studio system on this method of ranking films only serves to further ingrain into the public’s mind what a good and accurate system it is.

An infinite feedback loop. Pure and simple.

Conclusion

Like anything, when used properly, Rotten Tomatoes can be a feather in the cap of even the best film lover. However, when taken as some sort of omniscient arbiter of quality, the site (and scores) take on a truly unpleasant shape. It ceases to be a help and instead becomes a hindrance to anyone looking to find their next favorite film – whispering in their ear and attempting to sway their decisions towards that of the masses.

Overall, if you walk away with nothing else from this examination of the Rotten Tomatoes system, know this: It’s a wonderful tool to aid viewers in deciding on what to watch as long as they realize its limitations and make informed choices of their own.