I'd actually have to disagree with that. I saw TLK with a clean slate and I walked out disappointed, compared to previous Transformers movies I enjoyed when I knew they were already rotten before I saw them. In fact I walked out of the theater expecting to see like 5-6% on Rotten Tomatoes. Because I figured if I, a huge Transformers movie fan, was disappointed, critics must've hated it tremendously.
Well, with all due respect friend, I think that's fairly obvious to understand. We expect that films with higher scores are better films. Nobody wants to waste money, so spending money on a film one might eventually regret seeing is the major deterrent in this case.
As has been posited by others, if the film spent the better part of two hours establishing Optimus Prime as a sort of pathetic nobody who awkwardly danced his way through his daily adventuring affairs (seriously, jiving to his tunes is pretty much the first thing we see Starlord doing), and then used said bad dancing as a way to distract someone while his friends cobbled together a superweapon... yeah, I could probably get behind that. Can you imagine Starlord suddenly turning into a truck and ramming Ronan the Accuser? Seems just as ridiculous, doesn't it? So? A lot of effort went into New Coke, doesn't mean it was good or that people liked it. Does being a massive, expensive project mean that a film is entitled to having an audience or a financial return? Also doesn't help your argument that the people who put all those hours and effort into the creation of TLK were PAID for that effort... Artistic Criticism has been around since literally BEFORE the business, as have various metrics and forms of recommending plays/books/films/whatever, and film, as an industry, is not in any danger of going away, so... that's your "hurting the business" line out the window right there. If you mean rotten tomatoes, specifically, well, maybe it's hurting the business of tentpole blockbusters that can be counted on to bring in a billion dollars, and maybe it's hurting people going out and paying twenty bucks to see a movie when they could enjoy other alternative forms of media, but that's frankly like blaming Henry Ford for a decline in the horseshoe business. Lastly, your statement that artistic criticism has disappeared, you're going to need to back that up because I call flaming bullshit on that statement. I'll agree with you up and down that Rotten Tomatoes fresh/rotten scale, and the entire multi-decade long history of summarizing cinematic analysis down to a simple numerical or binary scale is bad for the art and does a disservice to the medium, but its far from new, and frankly, that seems to be about as far into cinematic criticism that a good part of the audience is willing to go. I lay that at THEIR feet, not the feet of the critical community, because criticism is only getting better, and more accessible, as time has gone on. Not only are we much more able to discuss the medium of film with eachother, consume films from different people and places, and find/study what past analysts have had to say, but now the lens of cinematic analysis and appreciation is being placed on genre films, and that's expanding the language of film itself through some amazing cross-pollenation. How much of this is really about the state of criticism, and how much of it is about critics saying negative things about a thing you like?
Critics are there for our entertainment and our benefit. I find it intriguing to read reviews of my favorite and not so favorite films. It adds to the breakdown and analysis. And even the negative ones find things that are positive. But no one says "BEFORE YOU WATCH THE LAST KNIGHT YOU MUST LOOK AT ITS TOMATO METER MUAHAHAHAHA!" I have a very dear friend who is in the business, he is a film critic for a news site, and a paper before that. He gives me no shit whatsoever about liking these films, and respects my opinions, and listens to them. He often tells me I would be shocked at how many of his peers are huge Michael Bay fans. I assure you there is no evil lord behind the tomoato meter who has the goal of ruining every single transformer film, it's just not set up that way. Transfomers in its current state is not made to be critically acclaimed, and I think Michael Bay himself would tell anyone that.
Critics are critics. Their job is to point out flaws and provide recommendations to regular folk. Here's the brilliant part. You and I have no obligation to listen to anything they say. If the critics say TLK is a 15%, all that means is that the critics say TLK is a 15%. I perceive TLK as a bad movie. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. The thing everyone seems to forget is that you can recognize something as low-quality, but you are not obligated to let that affect your enjoyment of the movie. I will never, EVER advocate for the "just shut your brain off" mentality (heh.) It's a terrible idea. Every time you consume any media, you should be paying close attention. Improvement only comes through recognition of flaws. TLK was riddled with plot holes, contradictions, animation errors, etc. And I loved every second of it. I would love a well-written, well-done TF movie. I'm advocating for better quality in the films. But I didn't walk out of the theater thinking that I had wasted my time on a poor movie. I walked out thinking that I had spent an enjoyable couple of hours, experiencing the luxury of cinema - experiencing the luxury that we have come so far as a race that we are allowed and encouraged to distinguish between good and bad films. That's how widespread it is. We can tell literally any story we want, build whatever world we can imagine. We have that much raw power, and we're allowed to disregard as much or as little as we like. Fuck, I think I had a point I was aiming for at one point. I don't know. Good entertainment is better than bad entertainment, but that doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't enjoy bad entertainment.
I really didn't enjoy TLK, but that said never listen to Rotten Tomatoes. They provide an average of all critical opinions they can find, and those critics are often morons. In addition, there's not degree of quality taken into account. One movie gets 6,6,5 /10 Another gets 9, 4, 4. They both have the same RT rating rating, even though one had a review that was glowing while the rest received only middling.
Rotten Tomato doesn't set the score. It aggregates all of the reviews and produces a number that reflects it. If it got a 15%, that means enough people thought it was terrible to drop the score that low. Wait, people are more willing to see a movie they have heard is good than one they've heard is bad?!
Rotten Tomatoes' system sucks by much. If a movie starts with 93% most of the people who aren't that familiarized with the page could believe that it means a 9/10, when in fact, that score means the people WHO LIKED it. Anyway, TLK deserved that 15%.
I would more put it at a %35-%45 I don't think it was bad as everyone said, but I don't think it was good, per say.
For what a Rotten Tomatoes score represents, it is accurate. Remember as extreme examples, a movie that gets straight F's will have the same score as a movie that gets straight C minuses. Likewise, a movie that gets straight A pluses will have the same score as a movie that gets straight C pluses. RT is based on an all or nothing score. From the serious critics I read at reputable publications, they all agreed the movie was bad (so the RT score is accurate), but most also seemed to say it was the least bad of the bunch or at least of the sequels (so the RT score is misleading if not taken the right way).
true. It's such a shame that Bay always had some potentials for improvement in each TF movies. Even in TF2!
The thing is Rotten Tomatoes wouldn't even be a factor if the Hollywood studios didn't treat their customers like a bunch of rubes they could dump anything old thing at all off on. When you get to the point where even the Simpsons can do an episode on people feeling ripped off by the movie industry you know you have burned up all the good will people once had. Until people can get back a feeling of going to the movies is going to provide a reasonably entertaining product then there will continue to be a backlash. Too many movies tried to get away with just special effects or the hype of a tent pole event while ignoring those fundamentals like character, story, structure, or all the other factors that would still make a movie good if you stripped off the shiny effects.
The source that the OP got his information from: RT / Rotten Tomatoes. The total negative reviews was 165 on RT at the time I posted that. Those reviews contributed to the 15% score that was quoted in the original post.
