Another DC failure, another round of negative back draft, another round of negative back draft against negative back draft.
Maybe the project was just too ill conceived to be pulled off properly at this stage of its franchise’s existence, maybe the hand of executive meddling was spurred into action by studio fear of the “Dawn of Justice” debacle, perhaps it was a mix of both or a case of decent elements just not coming together the right way. Whatever the reason may be, the final cut of the film is an unfortunately undeniable mess. Negative critical reaction followed thereafter.
Adding to the pile of DC’s PR problems in the area of cinema is the rabid nigh cultish fervor with which its defenders wish to jump to the film’s defense seeing the perceived and reported inadequacies of the film as some sort of affront to their tastes in entertainment.
While the immaturity of this defensiveness combined with the contradictory nature of defending something by telling people to lower their standards and expectations mounting to the point of petitioning for the closure of a site that merely reports reviews rather than writing them is pitifully hilarious enough to warrant its own discussion, it does lead to a bigger issue with the perception of reviews that has gotten out of hand.
Regarding the issue of the former, I merely say this; DC fans, stop silencing criticism.
There’s nothing wrong with you enjoying films in your own right that other’s find problematic. There’s not even anything wrong with binding together your own little cult following in support of aspects of their uniqueness. If you think you’re doing anybody a favor by campaigning that the world at large tune out the widely agreed upon problems that have been plaguing the branding of the DC Extended Universe since day one, you couldn’t be more mistaken.
Pushing the idea that the film is made to be enjoyed by “the fans” is not only a fallacy reliant upon a majority of fans of DC properties pledging the same level of enjoyment (which they aren’t), its demanding less from a studio that has produced gaping and problematic errors in their productions that have been easily avoided regularly not only by competition in the genre but by several other blockbuster films of entirely different subject matters.
Whoever these so called “fans” are is irrelevant to Warner Bros. and their bottom line. These films were made on lavish budgets, with extensive marketing campaigns, to reach a broader demographic of mainstream audiences that just aren’t responding positively.
Being an outlier happens and it can be frustrating but you need to deal with it. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending these movies are perfect regardless of the blatant and conspicuous hiccups of technical make-up that even the filmmakers, actors, and executives have acknowledged are major flaws hurts everybody in the long run.
Furthermore, the executive mandates, behind the scenes criticisms, and problematic conundrums of preproduction, principal photography, and post production have been well documented and revealed to the public as being symptomatic of a system in which Warner Bros. executives claim no accountability for poorly managing projects while leaving creators and lower level employees to take the blame for things that they should be more closely overseeing.
In short, enjoy the movies all you damn well please but the job of a critic is to criticize the flaws. That is what’s happening.
Regarding the issue of the latter however, why has the internet culture at large decided that the legacy of a film must be quantified by a numerical value on a 10 point scale despite the mountains of text providing qualitative analysis preceding said number?
Between a culture raised on the instant gratification of rapid fire internet entertainment and the devaluing of substantial reading that would require some sort of reflection or challenge of one’s values that doesn’t degenerate into kindergarten shutdown tactics, somewhere along the line, the world seems to have forgotten that review scores are supposed to be the least important part of a review.
Scores are a tool; they help to paint a very broad picture with which the details are filled in by the content of the actual text, listing the positive and negative traits, the artistic intent and value of a work, who its intended audience is, the importance it has to society, its worth as entertainment juxtaposed with how easy or difficult it is to be experienced, and a plethora of other factors that cannot be summarized by a number.
Those criteria that go into judging something, subjective to personal tastes and preferences held by each individual, also don’t account for how objectivity is factored into analysis. It is very possible to like something while acknowledging that it’s not necessarily good and vice versa.
I have several times given negative reviews to films that I enjoy (Independence Day: Resurgence, X-Men: Apocalypse, Kick Ass 2, Straight Outta Compton) because my enjoyment of them came despite critical flaws that irredeemably dragged them down. About as often as that occurs, I’ve given positive reviews to films that I haven’t particularly enjoyed (Finding Dory, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fault In Our Stars, Man of Steel) simply because there are certain ideas on display and such powerful craftsmanship at work in some respects that I don’t feel my lack of enjoyment should detract from letting people know that there’s something to it worth being seen.
The only way one would know what that certain something is however is by actually reading the substance of the article. All the score is meant to do is provided a general statement of whether one finds the film to be enjoyable and to what extent.
If these reasons for putting so much stock into numerical scores being a sign of the devolution of society weren’t enough, I haven’t even tackled niche genres like kaiju movies, exploitation films, body horror, and a great many others that fail to find an audience with the majority of critics based on grounds of cultural identity, morals, ethics, constitution, and several other factors that are so highly subjective that any consensus reached would have marquee value at best because the audience for it just isn’t wide enough.
Last but not least, holding them up as something worth getting riled up over not only devalues the actual analysis that may have been done in the actual text of those reviews but doesn’t even take into account that history and hindsight can impact perception of a movie in the future.
“Ghostbusters,” “The Big Lebowski,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and half the films of the Disney Animated Cannon that are considered modern classics are films that have all received critical receptions ranging from middling to outright lambasting. Had Rotten Tomatoes existed about 80 years ago, all of these movies would have been initially certified rotten because the climate that they were created in just wasn’t ready to receive them with open arms.
Ultimately, DC fans are doing more harm than good by getting up in arms over the reception of movies that are very openly flawed products of a system that is damaging the film industry more than helping it but if the raging forums of fanboys throwing Tomato meter percentages and Metacritic scores at each and those blow hards that claim professional reviewers have no meaning to them while making 10 minute productions on why professional reviewers apparently have no meaning to them are to be believed, they aren’t the only ones with a misunderstanding of the usage of scoring in critical review.
All that a film has to offer can’t be quantified by a single number belonging to a scale applicable to any quantitative measurement conceivable. And if none of this has been convincing, perhaps some of these review percentages for films commonly perceived to be influential on the zeitgeist of pop culture can be persuading.
Blade (1998): Metacritic Score 45
Predator: Metacritic Score 36
Home Alone: Rotten Tomatoes 54%
Friday the 13th: Metacritic Score 35
Return of the Jedi: Metacritic Score 53
Some Kind of Wonderful: Metacritic Score 55
Scary Movie: Rotten Tomatoes 53%
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