The Divide Between Audiences and Film Critics Keeps Growing

The last few weeks have been full of discussion about the differing opinions of critics and audiences. From Brad Pitt’s new sci-fi epic, “Ad Astra,” and it’s dwindling audience reactions (43% audience score on rotten tomatoes, and a 7.1 IMDb score which is still falling fast), to both Ansel Elgort (with the help of his mum) and Frank Stallone (brother of Sly) appearing to take aim at critics following their ravaging of “The Goldfinch” and “Rambo:Last Blood” respectively. Both of which, if you look at aggregators rotten tomatoes and IMDb, have significantly higher audience ratings than critical scores. And these instances aren’t the most high profile discrepancies in the last year either. Both Sony’s Spider-Man spin off “Venom,” and Fox’s Oscar winning “Bohemian Rhapsody,” especially the latter almost starting a full-scale war. Both films were ripped apart in reviews for their ‘poison of dullness’ (Venom) or their appearance as having gone through the ‘rusty machinery of the Hollywood biopic’ (Boh Rap), however it didn’t stop either marching north of 700M at the worldwide box office, and the latter from sweeping home some Academy Awards, with its star Rami Malek taking home the best actor Oscar for one.

In fact the rapturous love for “Bohemian Rhapsody” (full disclosure I had many problems with the film), which probably stemmed from fans of Freddie Mercury and Queen willing the film to be better than it was, caused film Twitter to erupt into meltdown, with fans piling hate on those who slammed the movie. The best embodiment of this entire conversation is The Telgraph critic Robbie Collin’s twitter feed following his piece ‘why you’re all wrong about lousy Rami Malek-from his harshest critic’ just before the actor took home Oscar gold. Worth a read for anyone who loves or hates the Queen flick.

So do critics and audiences have different tastes, I mean after all, critics are moviegoers and lovers as well. And the usual argument of ‘people just want to go and be entertained for a few hours’ surely applies to critics as well. Because although you may go and watch a film to see how bad others have said it is, surely no one goes into a film hoping it’s terrible.

Or does it come down to the sheer amount of movies someone has seen. I’d no doubt wager it’s harder to entertain a critic who has watched countless blockbusters of the same Ilk for 20 years than the average cinema goer who has watched half as many. Going back to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” its stock of being a ‘good film’ in someone’s mind would surely wain if being compared to a film of similar nature, like James Mangold’s Johnny cash biopic, “Walk the Line,” an objectively better musical biopic.

It’s also probably wise to say that these contrasting opinions will have always existed, but, with twitter and the likes of rotten tomatoes and IMDb, they now have a platform. And that is both good and bad. Discussions and conflicts are 100% necessary in the world of film, it’s a subjective industry that wouldn’t exist without it. Although it could do without the huge barrage of abuse some take (Batman V Superman’s fanboy rally of #releasethesnydercut).

I’m sure James Gray’s “Ad Astra” isn’t the last film of 2019 that will drive a wedge between audiences and critics, especially as awards season come close to full swing, but who knows, maybe Tom Hooper’s “Cats” will bring everyone together.