Rotten Tomatoes

[325irollin]

Have you ever watched a movie then looked at the review on RT? When I see a shit movie it'll have like an 98% then I check a movie I really liked and it's a 2%. How do they rate movies? Their reviews seem to be horse sht. Just my opinion

[DHall243]

I think it may be Bad with a higher rating dont know though

[jamg]

It's just a bunch of movie review critics that have gone to college to get a degree on how to rate films.

idunolol

[ronmcdon]

I don't think Rotten Tomatoes actually does any reviews themselves.
Rather they compile several reviews from media sources, and then average it out to give a final score.
It's kinda like www.metacritic.com

You would have known this, had you actually clicked on one of the reviews instead of just looking at the raw scores and forming assumptions.
fyi - not all critics agree with each other either.
personally I love rotten tomatoes.
If I absolutely had to have a complaint, I would say the final score is sometimes a bit too generous.

From Wiki;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes staff search the Internet for as many websites as possible that contain reviews of particular films; from the amateur to the professional. The staff then determine for each review whether it is positive ("fresh", marked by a small icon of a red tomato) or negative ("rotten", marked by a small icon of a green splatted tomato).

The website keeps track of all of the reviews counted (which can approach 270 for major, recently released films) and the percentage of positive reviews is tabulated. If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh" in that a supermajority of the reviewers approve of the film. If the positive reviews are less than 60%, then the film is considered "rotten." In addition, major film reviewers like Roger Ebert, Desson Thomson/Stephen Hunter (Washington Post), and Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), are listed in a sub-listing called "Top Critics", which tabulates their reviews separately, while still including their opinions in the general rating. When there are sufficient reviews to form a conclusion, a consensus statement is posted which is intended to articulate the general reasons for the opinion. The ratings favor recent releases and films with large numbers of reviews over older films, due to the scarcity of archived reviews for such older films.

This rating in turn is marked with an equivalent icon when the film is listed, giving the reader a one glance look at the general critical opinion about the work. Films that are considered "fresh" are required to have at least 40 reviews from Tomatometer critics (including Top Critics); those that have at least 75% positive ratings receive the "Certified fresh" label as well as the red tomato.[6] As a result of the requirements for quantity of ratings, there may be films with 100% positive ratings which don't have the certificate due to insufficient reviews to be sure of the freshness.

There are several films that have received a 100% freshness rating with fewer reviews including The Evil Dead, The Wizard of Oz, The Terminator, Before Sunrise, Toy Story 2, Dr. Strangelove, The Godfather, All About Eve, Taxi Driver, Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Jaws, Toy Story, Triumph of the Will, Man on Wire, Mary_Poppins_(film), Zulu, and The Killer, and there are over 200 films that have so far received a 0% freshness rating. The site has recently included a page of the "100 Worst Reviewed Films of All time."

In addition to reviews, Rotten Tomatoes hosts message forums, where thousands of participants take part in the discussion of movies, video games, music and other topics. In addition, users are able to rate and review films themselves. Every movie also features a "user average" that calculates the percentage of users that have rated the film positively in a manner similar to how the critics' reviews are calculated. However, this score is more specific as the users are able to rate the movie on a scale of 1-10 (compared to critic reviews, which usually use 4-star ratings and are often simply qualitative). Like the critic's reviews, a score of 6 or higher is considered "fresh".

[BustedS13]

i use RT as a guide to movies to see. they're pretty accurate generally. but there's two things you need to remember:

-add 30% to the score for action movies
-subtract 30% for movies with man-on-man gay scenes and posthumous releases

[ronmcdon]

Even better, find the 'specific' reviewers you enjoy, and just read their stuff.
no point wasting time reading reviews you don't agree with.
'Raw Scores' are arguably meaningless by themselves, unless it's something than manages to consistently impress or offend.

All Reviewers are biased to some extent, and probably cater to a select audience.
It's no different with book, music, and maybe game reviews (although that is a bit more objective imo).

I do like the Onion AV club, Variety, LA Weekly, Austin Chronicle & the Village Voice.

I am not a fan of the following, as they are usually fairly predictable:
IGN: seems to cater towards young males who like boring hollywood action films.
San Francisco Chronicle: caters overwhelmingly towards all things gay & lesbian.

OT- Actually looking at Rottentomatoes more, I do prefer Metacritic's format more.
It's just easier to navigate around the site.
Rottentomatoes does have great forums, however

[adam s]

I find them to mostly accurate.

[325irollin]

Maybe I just like bad movies haha..