Rotten Tomatoes: What is a review aggregator?

This post will help all of you understand what exactly is a review aggregator site, like Rotten Tomatoes, and why your blames are pointless.

With the recent backlash that many films have received, fans can be quick to blame the critics and sites such as Rotten Tomatoes. To name a few films that have been critically shredded with reviews, let’s talk about the more recent ones.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was one of the most anticipated films of all time. As a fan and a viewer, you couldn’t help but be absolutely thrilled that you were finally able to see these two heroic icons on the big screen. There’s definitely no way that a movie like this could be bad, right?

Well, it was. And no, critics were not paid by Marvel to give bad reviews just so that others wouldn’t go watch the film. It’s just that most fanboys (yes, I’m talking to you, DC lovers) can’t accept the fact that it’s a bad film, so you’re quick to point fingers at the so-called “paid off” critics who wrote up bad reviews. Let’s face it: the film was a disappointing mess.

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We’re all hoping that Suicide Squad can get rid of the bad taste that Batman v. Superman left in our mouths, and apparently, it’s not cutting it. With the world premiere going down on Monday night, once the embargo was lifted on Tuesday, the film was met with absolutely terrible reviews. While we have to reserve judgment since there are a lot of us who still haven’t seen the film (since it officially releases on Friday, August 5), so far, the reception for the film isn’t very good.

Naturally, fans of the properties are absolutely outraged. They haven’t even seen the film, and they’re already claiming that all these critics are extremely biased and aren’t stating what they actually think since they’ve been paid to write something else. But the most baffling thing we’ve seen today is these same fans signing a petition to shut down the website Rotten Tomatoes.

For those who don’t know, Rotten Tomatoes is a website where we can read up on reviews on the latest films and TV shows. When people see a bad review for a film that they were looking forward to, they automatically point the finger at Rotten Tomatoes, stating that they’re always giving bad reviews. What they don’t realize is that the website is a review aggregator. Rotten Tomatoes does not review films, they just collect reviews from different critics and average out the total score.

(Let it be known that these critics must be accepted by the website. No random person can just write up a review for a specific film and have it added to the total score. These are all professional critics, some of whom are world-renowned.)

For example, so far, 60 critics have reviewed Suicide Squad, and 37 out of those 60 critics have written up a negative review, which means that more than half of those who saw the film disliked it.

As fans of the film, it’s understandable if you may not agree with critics prior to watching the film and want to develop your own opinion, but your blames and complaints are meaningless. Blaming Rotten Tomatoes is a waste of time since they don’t review films, they’re just an aggregator. That is all. It’s pretty simple to understand, really.

It must be hard to be so excited for a film and realize that it’s a huge disappointment, but please leave Rotten Tomatoes alone.

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