The process of reviewing movies is broken. The system we expect to serve as a barometer for
the quality of a film is not working the way we want. But while it's not working the way we want,
It is working the way they want. You see, the review process may be broken,
but the powerful people who broke it want it to stay that way.
Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that hides power ups inside of bricks.
Go ahead. Hit that one and see what comes out. Ooh, you got the subscribe button.
That one gives you big brain abilities! Well, you know what they say. Knowledge is
power…ups. So at this point, do we need to ask if you've seen the Mario movie?
It's been shaking loose so much coin that you'd think you were suddenly in Wario land.
This thing is a mega mushroom sized hit at the global box office, sitting at nearly $1 billion
in worldwide gross as I write this with no signs of slowing down. This thing has put up such huge
numbers that industry experts are even bumping up their projections for the entire year of
cinema earnings just because of this one film. Everyone is calling out the fact that this one
movie has such a shocking overperformance. Which can we just be real here? Mario is more
recognizable to children than Mickey Mouse, and people are surprised that a feature film from
the marketing masterminds behind the minions is doing well? Whoa. Color me shocked, loyal
theorists who could have seen this one coming? I feel like a surprised Pikachu up in here. But
something that was a legitimate surprise to me and to the internet at large was
the response from movie critics, especially when compared to how different it was from
all the normal people walking out of it. As of the writing of the script, just 59%
of critics on Rotten Tomatoes scored this one positively, planting it in the rotten category.
And I just got to say that does not track with the movie that I saw. Was the Mario movie perfect by
any means? No, clearly not. I was pretty upfront in my last theory acknowledging the weak pacing,
the poor character motivation, and the fact that the soundtrack is just like the director forgot to
turn off his Spotify playlist. But just listen to some of these reviews, quote: “The whole package
is a deranged mishmash, an assault on the senses with a subpar animation style.” “The Super Mario
Brothers movie is the Illumination style done at its absolute worst.” Okay, the absolute worst?
Meanwhile, the audience reception sits comfortably at 96% positive, much closer to what seems to be
the consensus from all those lowly normies and other armchair reviewers on YouTube.
And it's that division that really interests me with a 59% critic score and a 96% audience rating,
that means that the Mario movie has a gigantic 37 point difference. Why? And
why does it feel like this sort of gap between critic and audience has been increasing over
the years? Over the past decade there are a ton of movies that were hits with the audience that
just wound up as complete whiffs to critics. Some notable examples here: Nintendo's console
war rival Sony has a lot of trouble in this category. Venom has a 30% with critics but an 80%
from audiences, a 50 point swing. Uncharted sits at 41% with critics and 90% audience approval. A
massive 49 point difference. The Greatest Showman, 29% divide. Netflix originals like The Gray Man,
Red Notice and Bright are 44, 56 and 57 point swings, respectively.
In every single one of these cases, fewer than half the critics recommend the movie,
but more than 80% of the audience does. And it works both ways, too. There are plenty of movies
that critics loved, but audiences didn't. The Last Jedi, Ralph Breaks the Internet,
US, Hail Caesar, Uncut Gems. How does this keep happening? Why does this keep happening?
And it's not like critics and audiences don't agree most of the time: Top Gun Maverick,
Avengers Endgame, Spider-Man No Way Home, John Wick Chapter 4. All recent examples that have
critics and audience scores in the nineties. Similarly high scores can also be found with
classics like Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, The Matrix. So is there any common feature here that
we can find across the films that have this extreme division between critic and audience?
loyal theorists, this has been a subject that's been on my mind for literal years,
and the fact that it's happened again with something as innocuous as the Mario movie,
it's finally got me to look into it. After all, it kind of feels like critics and
audiences watched two completely different Mario movies here. So what's going on? Well,
after looking into the history of reviews, I found evidence to suggest that there are some
pretty powerful players in this game banking on the fact that there's a war between audience and
critic. Munch down those mushrooms loyal theorists, we're entering the warp pipe.
First, let's set up the parameters of what we're actually talking about here.
Rotten Tomatoes actually has very specific rules and formulas for what makes a piece
of media good or bad in their eyes. For both critic and audience scores, a good review is
anything with three and a half stars or higher. If fewer than 60% of those reviews are good,
a film is considered rotten. 60% or higher gets you a fresh rating. So with that mind
let's talk about our two groups. The audience is exactly what it sounds
like. Anyone who wants to voice their opinion about the film, that means it's a big group
with a lot of different types of people in it. Shocking. I know. Meanwhile, there's some pretty
strict criteria involved with Rotten Tomatoes approving critics for their site. Basically,
it boils down to “frequent quality criticism” across written video or audio reviews, the regular
person hopping on to Twitter or TikTok to share their hot takes as the credits roll, ain’t getting
added to that side of the tomato meter. And that matters. According to Career Analysis website
Zippia, film criticism in the United States has a pretty clear demographic. More than 80% are men,
more than 67% are white. 90% of them completed some sort of college degree and they have a
median age of 40 to 44. A lot of them also live in larger cities, especially ones heavily involved
in filmmaking like Los Angeles and New York. Obviously, these traits don't define a person.
Lived experiences are going to be far more important to a human being than what boxes
they check for statistics. But this is useful information setting a tone for the majority
of the reviews that are affecting the score. Rotten Tomatoes must have agreed since in 2018
they tried to open up their roster of critics to a greater variety of sources, but were ultimately
met with a very limited degree of success. So with all of this in mind, it starts to
become clear why there's a division here. Think about the people in the audience
review section. They’re anyone from a single NASA employed rocket scientist with five kids
to a C average high school student wanting to gentle minion with the boys, and all of those
voices are treated equally. Meanwhile, I think everyone can come up with a rough
idea of the stereotypical critic, Ratatouille hit this one on the head in the food world.
But why would that impact the split we see here between those critics and audiences on the Mario
movie? Well, I suspect that a lot of it comes down to expectation. When you have a specialized
group of people that are so similar, like critics, they're likely going to have specific expectations
about what they want out of something. And in the case of the Mario movie and other
divisive films like it, seems like the reviews kind of miss the point. The Mario movie is a kids
movie aimed unapologetically at a kids audience, Universal and Nintendo want kids to be the people
who want to see this film most. It wants to be the first movie that you saw in theaters for an
entire generation of kids, while also being good enough for the adults that take them.
It is not trying to be a masterpiece. It is trying to introduce kindergartners to the
idea of movies. And in that role it works great. But that’s also not what a lot of other modern
animated films are trying to do. Look at The Lego Movie, Puss in Boots, Into the Spider-Verse.
Those are animated films too, to be sure, but they're action comedies with grown up ideas
that have the coat of kids movie paint slapped on top. Stuff that would likely appeal more to
that college educated, middle aged critic. But the Mario movie? It’s not pretending to
be a kids movie, it IS a kid's movie. Mario's biggest problem as a character is pretty basic
hero's journey stuff, learning that he needs to believe in himself and his abilities. Oh,
he also needs to eat his vegetables like Ma said, so he can grow big and strong. Mushrooms aren't
vegetables, obviously, but you get the idea. The long and short of it is that Mario was a lot
closer to something like the Paw Patrol movie, and it seems like critics went in expecting it
to be Pixar levels of story. Or at least that was my initial hypothesis. But when I looked
for evidence to confirm that suspicion, it didn't quite pan out. Because when you look at other kids
fodder like Despicable Me, Sing, Kung Fu Panda, the Paw Patrol movie like it just called out.
All of their scores match critic to audience. Even on things considered rotten like Minions,
audiences and critics agree it was trash, but they still are going to show it to the kids anyway.
So what was it about the Mario movie specifically that caused this divide? Well, to see if I could
actually spot any trends here, I pulled a bunch of movies that had a 20 percentage point or more
difference in either direction. Those where the audience scores were higher included The
Mario movie, obviously, that's why we're here. Also, the ones that I mentioned at the top:
Venom, Uncharted, Greatest Showman, Gray Man, Red Notice, Bright. But
also a lot of things that I haven't mentioned yet. Stuff like most Fast and Furious movies, Hillbilly
Elegy, Boondock Saints, Hotel Transylvania, The Live Action Lion King remake, Maleficents one
and two, Ghostbusters Afterlife. The Live Action Cats data didn't specify if it was the one with
or without the buttholes, and basically every Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean movie
ever. Oh and I can't forget Morbius 2, return to morbin’ time. On the other end of the spectrum,
the movies that critics liked that audiences didn't included Ralph Breaks the Internet,
Uncut Gems, Turning Red, The Last Jedi, US and Hail Caesar. Notice any trends here?
Because I certainly do. Let's pull them out by group because I can actually see a handful of
things all at work here. First, very clearly, the critics don't appreciate mindless action.
That's why all the Pirates, Transformers and Fast and Furious films are in these buckets.
The Netflix action movies, even comic book movies like Venom, they're not very deep.
They're largely formulaic, but they're also fun. They do action. And to be fair, many of them do
the action well. And sometimes as an audience, you just want to turn your brain off and let a movie
wash over you. You want to be entertained. Critics appear to be the exact opposite.
They're bringing notepads, they're scouring every frame, their brain is running over time
because it's in work mode. They just can't let a movie wash over them and enjoy it for what it
is. They're trying to find something constructive to say about every single movie that they watch,
every single week, and when all the movie does is just tick a bunch of boxes instead
of offering something different, well, that's going to lose points for the critic who watched
a similar movie last week, and the week before that and the week before that.
Treating movies as just an amusement park ride is just not as effective for the critic. Secondly,
looking at this list, critics don't seem to understand the humor and sensibilities of the
Internet. Cats? Morbius? I mean, we all know why you're here. You are the “so bad it's fun
to watch” crowd. I saw Cats in a rowdy Friday night theater with a group of kids in front of
me who kept meowing at the screen and let me tell you, it was the best cinema experience of my life.
Yep, you're right Nicole Kidman. I do come for the magic. The magic of the Taylor Swift
fan girl sitting next to me during that Cats showing shouting at the screen 40 minutes in
“Where's Taylor?” It was awesome. The entire audience erupted in laughter. But to a critic,
they're not appreciating movies ironically, they're not dressing up like a gentle minion like
the rest of us. They're not waiting for Jared Leto to Morb all over that screen. And as a result,
those movies get lower scores. On the flip side of that, though, look no further than
Ralph Breaks the Internet, a movie that got higher critical scores than audience scores,
because despite trying its best to rip off the humor and sensibilities of online meme content,
it did it in the most normie way possible.
Online communities can see through that thin attempt to cater to them,
which results in lower overall scores. Lastly, and this is perhaps the biggest
disagreement between the two camps, critics don't respond to nostalgia and familiarity.
While audiences clearly eat it up. Ghostbusters Afterlife: It's fun, it's enjoyable. But it's
also not a 94% positive movie. But audiences loved the fact that it felt just new enough.
You got old favorites, you got recreations of classic moments,
but with new enough faces and plotlines. Maleficent and Maleficent 2: movies that
began as a familiar and beloved fairy tale except told with a new twist. It's safe, it's nostalgic,
but also just a little bit new. That Lion King remake: Despite its quality, it's the movie
equivalent of a one way trip to nostalgia town. Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales:
It's not great, but audiences were clearly happy to revisit a fictional world that they hadn't
seen in a while. And now just take a look at the flip side. What do critics like that audiences
don't? Things that feel too new, do things too differently, are a bit too far of a departure,
or that may be good unique ideas that maybe don't fully come together in the end. To the critic
who sees the movie at least once a week, they're placing premiums on things that are interesting.
The Last Jedi is a perfect example of this, where audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes focus on it
“not feeling like Star Wars” or the characters not behaving in ways that they would expect.
The critics praise the movie for shaking things up, trying to do new things,
taking the franchise in new directions. Turning Red is another one that falls
into this bucket. It's a Pixar movie that most parents would take their kids to,
thinking it's going to be a good time killer for the family. But then you have
scenes about periods and pads, and suddenly the room with your kids turns a bit awkward.
To a critic that's brave and necessary storytelling about topics that don't
get screen time. to the parent who is looking to kill some hours with their kid,
that's an uncomfortable conversation on the way home from the movies. I’m not saying it's good,
I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it's the truth and it's going to affect your score.
Now, take all of that information and look at the Mario movie. It is all of these
things rolled up into one. It's mostly pretty colors and fun action with a pretty thin plot.
It caters to online communities and gaming scenes that critics don't typically engage
with. And it's speed-running its way through tons of Easter eggs and nostalgia bait. This
movie is basically everything that critics don't like all in one convenient package. So I think
that's a pretty good explanation for what's going on with this divide between audiences
and critics as it relates to movies like Mario. But I'm still not entirely satisfied with the
answer. Like, Sure, maybe that's how it's happening, but why is it happening? And more
importantly, why does it keep happening? This disparity between critics and audiences is a
big enough issue, and it happens often enough that it's been on people's radars for at least
a decade now. You would think at this point we would have figured some way to sort this out.
I mean, shouldn't we all be on the same side here? Audiences ideally get valuable
information about movies before spending time and money on them, and critics need someone to
be reading or watching their reviews for their jobs to exist. So why would critics versus
audiences even be a thing? Unless someone was benefiting from sustaining this conflict. Stick
with me here, this is relevant, promise. The whole idea of review aggregators like
Rotten Tomatoes can trace their way back to basically a single place,
a show called At The Movies presented by a pair of critics named Gene Siskel and Roger
Ebert. Their whole shtick was that in lieu of scores, they’d both issue movies a thumbs up or
a thumbs down. Not only was it an entertaining show presented by a pair of knowledgeable guys
talking about their capital O movie opinions. But over the years, audiences got to know Siskel
and Ebert’s personal taste, to the point that they could even tell from a glance what sort of movie
they were getting into depending on the direction the thumbs pointed. This was great for consumers,
allowing them to get a clear and concise way of getting the broad strokes on a film's quality.
But for the studios, it was even better. The marketing value of this cannot be overstated.
If a movie managed to get these two to agree that it was good, that was huge. Overall,
this system was a win win for everyone during a time when information didn't
travel at the speed of the Internet. And it kind of sounds like what Rotten Tomatoes is
supposed to be in the modern day, right? Let me just see how good or bad a movie
is at a glance. But there's a problem with how Rotten Tomatoes handles things. Back
when it was just two guys on TV, it was easy to keep up with their opinions and
figure out how they thought. But now there are thousands of critics with followings across a
lot of different platforms. And in scaling up so much, adding so many people to the process,
literally hundreds of critics in most cases. Well, you start to lose the nuance of the
individual opinion. No longer do you think, Oh, Roger Ebert, like this thing. I like the
other things he recommended so I'm going to like this one, too. Now the individual thoughts are
basically stripped out of the process, flattened down and combined with everyone else's until
all you see is a number. Sometimes it's going to be a big number with a tomato next to it,
sometimes it's a small number with a green little slime next to it. Throw in audience reviews,
now you've got yourself to numbers. And would you look at that? If they're both big, you
have the new version of two thumbs up. Everyone loves the film and you as a moviegoer should go
see it immediately. And if they don't line up, well, now you've got yourself some conflict,
and the suits at all the ad agencies have really been able to twist this one to their advantage.
Marketing loves the good conflict narrative: Coke versus Pepsi, Apple versus Android,
Xbox versus PlayStation. But what they love even more is how these conflicts get consumers to self
sort into neat and tidy boxes so they're even easier to market to. It's been happening forever.
So if you end up with a film that critics aren't feeling, but audiences are, the studio can then
turn around and say “the critics don't like our movie, but so what? our movie is for you,
the average Joe.” And that can do wonders to create a passionate fan base, an us versus them
narrative. You know how ads will sometimes just pull quotes from all sorts of different reviews?
Well when Batman v Superman bombed with critics and at the box office, the film's official account
started tweeting out what look to be press quotes attributed to random Twitter users with the text:
“See it for yourself”. And wouldn’t you know it, but the Mario movie is now doing
the exact same thing. They're leaning in hard on the audience score, tweeting a web spot,
saying just “the audience has spoken.” And it's getting the intended effect. Literally,
the number one reply to this thing is “Exactly, we don't care about critics’ opinions.” Either way,
pretty much everyone with actual money invested in this thing comes out a winner.
Nintendo and Universal have a movie that fans start defending in a surprisingly long-legged
discourse, critics and content creators can write articles and make videos like this one, actually,
discussing why critics are or aren't wrong. And Rotten Tomatoes gets clicks and traffic as
people go to look up the scores, defend their opinions on the title, review it themselves,
and the whole website brand becomes part of the conversation, all without getting dragged through
the mud. Because they're the middleman. Or are they really the neutral middleman?
If you really want to start getting into the conspiracy theory of it all,
do you know who actually owns Rotten Tomatoes? Like the actual company that runs the website?
It's Fandango Media, a movie ticket retailer, and that makes a lot of sense. You go to see
how a film's been reviewed and if it catches your fancy, hey, here's a link to buy the ticket right
there at the bottom of the Rotten Tomatoes page. Not a big deal, right? But if you go one step
further up that corporate ladder, Fandango Media is jointly owned by Warner Brothers
Discovery and NBC Universal, who between them, own all of this. I'm not saying anything,
but isn't it interesting that one of those companies just released an animated kid's film
based on a popular video game that has wildly different reception from critics and audiences,
thereby driving this very conversation. And the Mario movie is literally just one
point on the rotten side for the critics, not so bad that it looks terrible, but just enough
to fuel discourse in the community and episodes like this. Like I said, that's taking it to an
extreme, but I'm just putting that little nugget of information out there for consideration. So
what do we do here loyal theorists? How do we do better? Well, I don't think the answer is to never
pay attention to reviews, nor do I think it's to take the audience's word as gospel. Instead
I think it's to take both of these things into account. As I've shown here today numbers can tell
you a lot, data is a great way to visualize a story, but rarely is it the whole story.
For me, I'm a firm believer in finding and then following film reviewers whose personal
tastes largely align with your own. Personally, I love the more casual reviews of Jeremy Jahns,
the cinematic sensibilities of Chris Stuckmann, and the overall industry coverage of Dan Murrell,
all right here on YouTube.com. Is Chris Stuckmann sometimes a bit too artsy for my taste?
Yeah. Is Jeremy sometimes a bit of an apologetic fanboy for franchises? Absolutely.
Does Den Murell… Well, actually, to be honest, they don't have a lot of complaints with Dan,
I usually really agree with his perspective. If anything, he sometimes hedges his opinion
a bit too much. Anyway, between these three, I feel confident knowing that I'm in good
hands. Getting a solid, well-rounded review from three professionals looking at a movie
all through their own unique lenses. And from there, I'm then empowered to
draw my own conclusions. There are dozens of incredible reviewers just like them here on
YouTube. If you have some of your favorites that deserve attention, please, please,
please call them out down in the comments below so I and everyone else can go and check them out.
And as always, my friends remember, it's all just a theory. A FILM THEORY! aaaaaaaaand cut.
By the way, if you want four theories right now about the Super Mario movie,
why not check out our video talking about how Mario is literally immortal
in the mushroom kingdom or how peach is actually a human star? That link
is onscreen right now. And hey, if you want more non reviews of some incredible films,
hit that subscribe button. Will you have the honor of becoming our 12,000,000th subscriber?
Hit the button to see if you hit the jackpot. As always, my friends, I'll see you next week.