The critic score came out first because critics saw the movie early. They thought it was a generic action flick. Naturally, DC fans took offense to those reviews and immediately declared Black Adam a masterpiece before they even watched it.
The high audience score we saw later is not surprising. You get the sense that some DC fans were determined to enjoy ‘Black Adam’ regardless of the film’s quality.
Critics and audiences have been at each other’s throats for years now. Critics don’t care what audiences think. Their job is to watch a particular piece of entertainment and rate it according to their enjoyment.
On the other hand, many viewers are convinced that critics are part of some conspiracy to either elevate or destroy certain properties. DC fans are especially paranoid about this.
They think Rotten Tomatoes has a bias against DC comic book adaptations because so many of them have received poor critic scores. They forget that RT does not rate movies. It merely aggregates reviews. For instance, Black Adam has a critic score of 40 per cent on RT. Does that mean Rotten Tomatoes hated Black Adam?
Of course not. It simply shows that 40 per cent of critics gave the film a positive score. This is where many viewers go wrong. First, they throw tantrums when critics assign a higher or lower rating than they think a movie or show deserves, paying no attention to the full review.
Secondly, they dismiss critics as being irrelevant and unnecessary. Third, they won’t hesitate to accuse critics that disagree with them of receiving financial incentives from Hollywood. This is where the term ‘Paid Shill’ comes from.
But critics are just people with opinions. They are neither wrong nor right. A critic’s job is to tell you what they think. Getting angry at those opinions is odd.
If you think a critic’s assessment of a movie is wrong, does that mean your assessment is correct? What makes your opinion more valid? This argument is silly, and it brings me to the second point.
Critic reviews matter. Why? Because most people cannot afford to watch every film that comes out. Cinemas are expensive, and the last thing you want as an audience member is to spend your one ticket for the month, or even the year, on a movie you will hate.
Critic reviews inform the selections of the masses. This pours back into the issue I mentioned earlier. Stop looking at the scores. Read the reviews. A critic loving or hating a movie is irrelevant.
Far more important are the reasons why they loved or hated that movie. For all you know, the reasons why they hated Black Adam may appeal to you, or vice versa. I’m asking you to take a comprehensive view of things. Look at every review and make your decision accordingly.
Finally, and most importantly, this idea that studios pay critics to provide positive reviews of certain movies is nonsense. I know it is nonsense because most critics assign a decent mix of positive and negative reviews.
Why would studios pay for positive reviews for one movie but then withhold payments for another? Consider this; critics gave Black Adam a 40 per cent score but the rating for The Suicide Squad still stands at a whopping 90 per cent.
Viewers should accept that critics are not obligated to agree with them.
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