It’s tough to argue that a guy like Brett Ratner isn’t extremely successful in Hollywood. The films that he’s been involved in have grossed over $2 billion. Frankly I was a big fan of The Family Man, a favorite Christmas movie of mine that he directed in 2000. However his reputation as a director is iffy at best. As a producer? Extremely successful. His reputation on Rotten Tomatoes? Horrible. So there’s no surprise when Ratner was recently quoted as saying,
“The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes,” Ratner said at the Sun Valley Film Festival last week, as reported by Entertainment Weekly. “I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline Kael’s reviews, or some others, and that doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it’s about, ‘What’s your Rotten Tomatoes score?’ And that’s sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on ‘Batman v Superman’ I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful.” Ratner’s company RatPac Entertainment co-financed “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
So here’s the thing. There’s no doubt that the negative buzz on Rotten Tomatoes about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice facilitated this comment. If it didn’t then Ratner is flat out lying. And to be honest I respect his comment about film critics. The way critics analyzed films was and is an art. However, here’s where there’s a huge disconnect and why I think Ratner is completely wrong here (and it has nothing to do with some of his sub-par movies).
Dumb comedies. That’s my response. Let me elaborate. How many people out there loved Ace Ventura: Pet Detective? So did I. Does anyone remember how the reviews were for that movie? Anyone else love Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore? Exactly. You see, there was a time when the top few movie reviewers had tons of influence over whether or not people would see films. Rarely if ever was there a community of people making a consensus on a film. At least not until Rotten Tomatoes arrived.
My point is simple. Don’t let anyone or anything influence your decision to see a film or not. Make that decision on your own. But I will say this, if I’m looking to see a consensus on what people felt about a film, I’m going on Rotten Tomatoes where thousands of people’s input is there and tallied up to find a numerical preference value. I’d way rather do that than rely on the opinion of one person who could very well be a pretentious elitist and only look at films as though they’re “art.” What if I just want to laugh and like stupidity? Rotten Tomatoes can at least pick up on that.
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