I don’t trust IMDB after Amazon bought it. Maybe a company that makes movies shouldn’t be in charge of rating them? Conflict of interest maybe?
Hudson Hawk, widely panned, is fun; just refuses to take itself seriously.
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iMDB: 5.7/10
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RT: 30/100
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Metacritic:17/100
I don’t care. That’s what I think of any film rating system. It’s a report, but not the experience itself.
See also: the Southland Tales, The One (2001), Lost Souls (2000). All are, objectively, bad films. And yet… I remember them to be re-watchable.
This write-up is on a site for and app and ends up shilling for that app, but it makes some useful points, confirmed by my years of poking around:
Trust Metacritic most for prestige drama, arthouse cinema, and Oscar contenders.
Trust IMDb most for genre films.
Use the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer as a quick pass/fail for critical reception.
Use the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score cautiously.
Full disclosure: I don’t have the app, don’t want the app, and don’t care about the app. Also, I skimmed the article in 2 minutes while watching my kids bounce on a trampoline.
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I really like The Postman, but I was surprised it had fairly negative reviews
IGN 6/10 review for Mouse: PI
I don’t think I have ever once looked at the ratings score on a film.
Which is weird, because I’m active on rateyourmusic and do put stock in those ratings, and I also pretty religiously check customer reviews on Steam for games.
But for whatever reason, I couldn’t care less what people think in terms of film. 🤷
It never affects my enjoyment of a thing. But if I’m already questioning whether or not I want to continue, that rating makes a difference.
Imbd giving 28 years later 7.3/10 is crazy
I saw “The Bride” in theaters a few months ago and the fact that that movie ISN’T a 0 on imdb invalidates the whole concept of critic reviews for me. Worst movie I have ever seen (and I’ve seen “The Room” twice)
Oh, hi Mark
You’re my favorite customer
Do people really trust ratings for things? It seems like we are so far removed from those number meaning anything useful I’ve long been ignoring them.
I’m with you on this. It may be useful to get an idea of probably bad, probably good, but not as a function of quality, since they can easily score amazing a trash movie and write shit about actually high-quality movies.
But, essentially, the score doesn’t say anything, more so when masses are involved. Legions of fans of some actor will, for example, score perfect a movie starring them.
Do people really trust ratings for things?
It’s generally in the ballpark. Universally panned films rank lower than universally loved films. Cult classics tend to score better than average but rarely break into the 8-9 out of 10 range. It’s good to check the “Critics Score” against the “Popular Score”, as a big spread tends to say something about the nature of the film (High C:P suggests Oscar Bait, low C:P suggests it’s either very niche or very crass or very ideological).
The scores contain useful information about the nature and quality of the film. They just don’t tell you whether you will like the film.
I’ll also throw in that I’ve heard more than a few movie reviews that have changed my opinion on a movie I’ve already seen (typically one I’ve seen forever ago that I just remember fondly or disparagingly). Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie for years, but I’ve definitely come around on it being the worst of the OT. At the same time, my opinion of The Transformers Movie came up quite a bit after hearing a few reviews raving about the art design, the musical score, and the voice acting. Same with Princess Bride, which I’d mentally written off as some stupid low-budget made-for-TV schlock until I got into college and had friends screening it enthusiastically.
If you’re just cruising for “decent movie to end the weekend” on, surfing through the Criterion Collection will yield a bunch of gems.
Is it just me, or is IMDB becoming shittier and shittier?
They recently started demanding an account to read user reviews.
Well it is owned by Amazon
Ah, now it all makes sense to me.
TMDb and NeoDB.social are the hot alternatives.
Sad that IMDB now hide the user opinions behind their login screen. A score alone isn’t helpful at all.
Not IMDB, but Rotten Tomatoes is dead to me after their score for Boondock Saints was 26% despite a user rating of 91%.
Maybe it’s not a cinematic masterpiece, but it’s a solidly fun movie.
I think one of the reasons the critics came at it so harshly was that it was sort of this meme-movie. Lots of quotable lines. Lots of memorable scenes. But the overarching story kinda sucked. The villains were silly and lame. The heroes were uninspired. The movie parked itself on Irish Dude-Bro demographics and just kinda catapulted itself into cult classic material by casting Willem Dafoe a bit before he went mainstream.
I think it’s better than a 26%. But not all that much better.
I love to chase my toddler around and say “You’re going nowhere! Where you goin’? nowhere!” Before lightly bodyslamming him. Now he just runs around yelling, “I’m not going anywhere”
For me, fan score is a separate axis (how much fun is the film).
And then you go to Letterboxd where it’s even worse.
I use them by genre. A drama or action movie needs a very high score for my tastes.
Comedies usually a 6 or 7 is going to be good for me and a very high score usually means it’s a dramery.
Horror movies with very high scores are usually mainstream over produced like the conjuring. Good horror movies usually are 6-7 like the witch or hededitary
And also, if a movie has a very high meta critic but a very low user rating it usually means the movie will be weird af
I learned in my youth not to read reviews of things I like. It’s unpleasant and pointless to read someone savaging your favorite albums or books.
(More critical analysis can be fine, but regular Internet reviews are not so worthwhile)
