Critics Analyze, Audiences Feel
The first thing to understand is that a professional film critic and an average moviegoer often have different jobs. A critic's role is to analyze a film based on a wide range of elements: its script, direction, performances, cinematography, and editing.
They place it in the context of film history and the director's previous work, assessing its artistic merits and what it contributes to the medium. Your job, on the other hand, is simply to be entertained, moved, or thrilled for two hours. A critic might fault a movie for using a predictable plot structure, while you might find that same structure satisfying and fun. Their criteria for success—originality, technical mastery, thematic depth—might not be your primary reasons for buying a ticket. You might just want to see giant robots punch aliens, and that's perfectly fine.
Read the Review, Not Just the Score
Aggregate scores are convenient, but they lack nuance. A "Rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes doesn't mean every critic hated the film; it just means a majority of them wrote a review that was classified as more negative than positive. A far more useful approach is to read the actual reviews, especially the negative ones. A critic might pan a comedy for being “excessively silly and juvenile,” which might be exactly the kind of humor you enjoy. They might criticize a horror movie for relying on “cheap jump scares,” but if you love jump scares, that review just told you this movie is for you. The body of a review is filled with descriptive information about the film's tone, style, and content. By focusing on what the movie is, rather than whether the critic thought it was good, you can make a much more informed decision.
Find a Critic Who Gets You
Not all critics are monolithic. They have their own tastes, biases, and areas of expertise. The critic from a high-brow arts journal might have a different standard for a summer action flick than a writer for a genre-focused website. The key is to find a few critics whose tastes generally align with your own. If you find a writer who consistently loves the same weird sci-fi movies you do, their opinion—positive or negative—is probably more relevant to you than a generic consensus. In the digital age, it’s easier than ever to follow specific writers whose work you respect. Think of them less as arbiters of quality and more as movie-loving friends who get to see things early and can give you a personalized heads-up.
Beware the 'Review Bomb'
In the world of audience scores, it's also wise to be cautious. Sometimes, a film's low user rating has little to do with its quality. This phenomenon, known as "review bombing," occurs when a coordinated group of people floods a movie with negative reviews, often for political or cultural reasons unrelated to the film itself. These campaigns typically happen in a short burst right after a product's release and are intended to sabotage public perception. You can often spot this when there's a massive, inexplicable gap between the critic score and the audience score, or when user reviews are full of angry language about social issues rather than the movie's plot or characters. This can artificially deflate a movie's rating, making it seem widely hated when the backlash is actually from a small but organized group.
