20 Movies With Deeply Confusing Movie Ratings
Tragedy hit Marvel this week when the CinemaScore was revealed for the studio’s latest release, the lowest score in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That probably sounds good, but considering that every second Marvel film scored an A- or higher, it’s a disaster. The rating for Rotten Tomatoes is also at the bottom – currently hovering around 50%. Studio President Kevin Feige is probably crying … on his way to the bank as the film still managed to win the fourth best opening weekend of the year (and two of the top three also make it to the MCU). The question is, if people keep coming and buying tickets, what’s the difference with CinemaScore? Critics sometimes let us down by praising legless films and neglecting films that later become classics. But does the audience rate the film better right away?
CinemaScore has a different and overall better model than some of the other movie rating services. Ballot papers are issued to statistically randomized moviegoers across the country at the cinema and are collected immediately after screening. It is impossible to review a movie that you don’t like in principle, because you have to actually watch the movie (and be randomly selected) to rate it.
CinemaScores tend to be very high: those surveyed are moviegoers at a movie premiere, which means that ratings come exclusively from viewers who have tried their best to see the movie on the first day. This explains why Marvel movies are so good: Most of the ratings come from the biggest Marvel fans, those who invest the most in the franchise as a whole. For this reason, the most obscure scores are often more related to audience expectations that the film itself – whoever paid for a traditional horror film – might be disappointed when it appears on a traumatic head trip like Heredity ( CinemaScore: D + ). Anyone looking for a sci-fi action movie won’t necessarily be thrilled with Solaris ( CinemaScore: F ).
This is why these initial ratings do not necessarily reflect the film’s long standing reputation or even its overall box office gross. Films very often get poor results just because they are challenging, surprising, or poorly marketed. I’m not sure if this entirely applies to the Eternals , which are a tricky combination of new ideas, (too many) new characters and standard Marvel plot, but it’s definitely not that bad, and partly suffered simply because It broke the formula. So here are 20 more films with perplexing ratings from CinemaScores considering they are actually pretty good (or great) films, whose only crime is to get viewers to work for them.