Is it fair that Rotten Tomatoes constantly updates critical reaction scores?

[thecolorsblend]

My grievance with RT has always been that film criticism isn't necessarily binary.

The example that I'll always point back to is Zodiac, the Fincher film. Now, I love that movie for the first hour and a half. The police procedural stuff. The cops are investigating, conducting interviews, they interrogate suspects, etc. Great stuff, love it.

But at almost exactly the 1.5 hour mark, Toschi hands the narrative baton off to Graysmith. And I just don't find Graysmith's storyline compelling. The last hour of that movie drags everything else down for me.

I love the film. Up to a point. And after that, it loses me.

So, do I have positive or negative opinion of Zodiac? Well, it's not binary, like I say. So, how would RT rank my opinion? I can't even categorize it myself. So, what chance do they have of doing it?

And yet, nuances, layers and context all get wiped away in the rush to assign a numerical score to something. And I don't think any truly worthwhile piece of art can be summarized that easily.

Tons of movies fall into the same grey area as Zodiac. The Hobbit trilogy, Friday Night Lights, Hancock, Jumper and numerous others are all greatly enjoyable in certain respects while still having some serious challenges to them. Describing my thoughts about them isn't something you can reduce down to Fresh or Rotten.

Nothing should ever be that simple, imo.

And I guess I owe you an apology, Fish, since my diatribe up there has basically nothing to do with your post. Sorry!

[The Laughing Fish]

No apologies necessary, colors! I agree with nearly everything you said.

Although I think Zodiac is excellent, you're definitely right there are many films that have pros and cons, and sites like RT encourage people to evaluate everything in black-and-white terms. I say BF is another good example of a mixed film. There's a lot of stuff in that movie I appreciate e.g. Bruce's psychological dilemma, and some stuff I feel isn't very good e.g. nearly everything involving Two-Face. It might be subjective, but a lot of movies can't be judged with binary thinking.

Now that RT is getting exposed, I hope film discourse becomes more honest and thoughtful going forward. One can only dream.