What Is Review Bombing?

While it happens in various mediums, we’ll stick to films…review bombing is when online review sites receive a huge number of negative reviews with the intention of not providing a review for the film but actively dragging down the average rating. Often these people have not seen the film – certainly, it seems like many such review bombers have made their mind up before seeing the film and often these are organised efforts. Why are people orchestrating these bad-faith campaigns? There are usually two reasons – first, they are fans of the franchise and are upset by decisions made about the film. Second are people who see the film as simply another part of an ongoing culture war, where the film is, or is perceived to be, making some kind of statement. These two groups are not mutually exclusive.

Films That Were Review Bombed

The best two known examples of review bombing I can think of are the Ghostbusters remake and The Last Jedi. Remaking a beloved film is always going to be difficult but 2016 Ghostbusters endured a nightmare of backlash from the start. I would argue that this film is a mix of the two mentioned above – fans unhappy with the direction the film was taking and people engaged in the culture war. Many people were upset that the four ghostbusters were going to be played by women (rather than men as in the original), and many just assumed, seemingly because of this, that it was going to be a terrible film. This is despite the fact that it’s director was the very successful Paul Feig and the women in question were very talented comedic actors (three of whom had all been stars of Saturday Night Live, the very show that launched the careers of some of the original Ghostbusters cast). A cliched refrain from certain people was that this remake was “ruining their childhood”.

The Last Jedi faced similar problems. The Disney Star Wars films have been dogged by fans upset by decisions made, ranging from perfectly legitimate criticism of plot-holes to hounding actors off social media with horrendous abuse. Some fans were already upset after The Force Awakens and ideas about what Rian Johnson planned to do upset some of them all the more. The Huffington Post published an article in which they spoke to someone who claimed to be behind a bot attack on Rotten Tomatoes to lower the rating and his criticism ranged from it’s “feminist agenda” to characters in danger of “being turned gay”.

It’s important to say it’s fine for a person to dislike these films and it is okay to give them bad reviews – if you’ve seen the film and you’re not simply acting in some bad faith campaign. Also, review bombing isn’t inherently about people wanting to criticise perceived progressive political bias – many of the cases of review bombing in video games were due to issues like anti-piracy moves that limited the number of times games could be installed, or high prices on games in certain areas, and review bombing was felt to be the only way to communicate with the game makers.

What Is Being Done To Stop It?

Sites that use reviews submitted by members of the public are aware of this issue (and some have had some pretty angry reactions to it) and have taken measures to prevent it. Rotten Tomatoes started a policy of verified reviewers, meaning a person had a to verify they had actually bought a ticket for the film. IMDb has developed a behind-the-scenes formula to detect attempts at review bombing and “weight” reviews. Some sites are taking action for films that have clearly already caused a stir before their release and are likely targets – Rotten Tomatoes has disabled the comments feature for some films before they were released in theatres – such as Captain Marvel which had received a large number of negative reviews before being released.

How Do We Know What People Like?

The best way to work out what an audience thinks of a film to ask them after they’ve watched it – and there are companies who survey audiences as they leave the cinema, but that costs money. Streaming services seem to offer an almost foolproof way as they can tell if a person has watched a film but it’s a minority of films that are released on streaming services at the same time as a theatrical release. Part of the problem is I’m sure many Star Wars fans who review bombed The Last Jedi did watch it but were never going to give it a fair chance.

It does seem like any online system is open to this sort of problem – where many people can easily be organised to disrupt the purpose of the task. Many an organisation has regretted leaving the decision of naming something open to an internet vote (see Boaty McBoatface and all the things named after Stephen Colbert). I don’t know if there is a simple solution to easily gauging what people think online that is immune to this sort of problem but, for now at least, this is a problem for only a handful of films.

I’ve never liked putting too much stock in rating on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes as they’re a self-selecting sample. IMDb does not force everyone who watched Inception to rate it and I suspect most of the people who submit ratings either loved a film or hated it as they felt motivated to give their opinion. I don’t think a fair online measure of what the general public thinks really exists and if you’re looking for a way to tell if you will like a film then talk to friends who share your interests, find critics who have similar taste, talk online about films. Trusting a review is like deciding whether you should listen to someone’s advice – you have to know a bit about them first.

Also Read: Great Video Games That Should Be Adapted Into A Movie

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It’s not been a bad year for the UK box office. With the total takings of 2019s top 10 highest grosser’s (at time of writing) being approximately £388,967,274 (according to Box Office Mojo and google money converter).

So today we are going to look at how the top 10 currently stands. Which movies have earned the most in the UK so far? And what have critics and audiences had to say about them?

10. The Secret Life of Pets 2 – £19,570,258

The latest offering from Illumination managed to rake in the box office, despite a rather lukewarm reception.

Audience Thoughts: 90% – Rotten tomatoes / 6.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “A sequel that feels less necessary than willed into being, but that doesn’t mean it’s not pleasantly entertaining.”

9. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – £21,219,615

While the concluding How to Train Your Dragon movie wasn’t as successful as its predecessors at the box office, it continued to impress both audiences and critics in equal measure.

Audience Thoughts: 87% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Who would have thought that DreamWorks’ “How To Train Your Dragon” would end up as one of the best film trilogies out there?”

8. Rocketman – £23,572,360

The Elton John biopic followed in the footsteps of last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody and became a smash hit across the UK.

Audience Thoughts: 88% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Rocketman is an honest, heartfelt tribute to Elton John’s music and his public image.”

7. Dumbo (2019) – £26,964,177

The first of Disney’s live-action remakes this year, left an odd taste in the mouths of cinemagoers. As despite its high takings, no one really seemed overly enthused about it.

Audience Thoughts: 51% – Rotten Tomatoes / 6.4 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “The problem with this latest entry in Disney’s ever-expanding range of recycled classics isn’t that it hews too close to the studio’s original animated masterpiece, but that its many departures only muddle the original’s nursery-rhyme simplicity”

6. Spider-Man: Far From Home – £31,524,501

The most recent film in the ever dominant MCU, like many of its predecessors, deftly managed to please both audiences and critics.

Audience thoughts: 95% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.9 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “It’s not quite the home-run of Homecoming, but Far From Home isn’t far from matching it, with heaps of humour, energetic action, and the answers Endgame left you craving.”

5. Aladdin (2019) – £37,496,448

Back with Disney’s live-action remakes, unlike Dumbo, Aladdin did manage to please audiences, critics however were very mixed.

Audience Thoughts: 94% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.4 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Another lavish and largely entertaining Disney re-do, with strong turns from Massoud and Scott. But…Smith’s genie performance feels disappointingly constrained — both by overdependence on the original and some ghastly CGI.”

4. The Lion King (2019) – £37,816,339

The latest Disney remake has, in only 2 weeks, already proven to be Disney’s most successful solo developed project in the UK. It also managed to capture the love of the general public. But critics have been less kind to this effort:

Audience Thoughts:  88% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.2 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Unfolding like the world’s longest and least convincing deepfake, the new “Lion King” fatally misunderstands what once made Disney special.”

3. Captain Marvel – £42,632,688

Despite its divided reception by both audiences and critics, Captain Marvel continued to prove the power of the MCU’s marquee value.

Audience Thoughts: 55% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.0 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Captain Marvel is … a solid enough movie, but it suffers from an overbearing need for its agenda to be pushed – had it been handled with a little more care, it could have been fantastic.”

2. Toy Story 4 – £53,611,537

9 years after Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4 finally made it to cinemas. It continued the high standards set by the original Toy Story films, opening to almost unanimous praise across the board.

Audience Thoughts:  94% on Rotten Tomatoes / 8.2 – IMDb (#170 on IMDb’s top 250 films)

Critics Thoughts: “This franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to beat the odds and reinvent itself…It’s a toy store of ideas, with new wonders in every aisle.”

1. Avengers: Endgame – £94,559,351

Lastly, we come to the highest-grossing movie of the year (and of all time). After over a decade of build-up, the MCU finally culminated with a fond farewell that pleased almost everyone.

Audience Thoughts: 91% – Rotten Tomatoes / 8.7 – IMDb (#24 0n IMDb’s top 250 films).

Critics Thoughts: “Avengers: Endgame is all that you hope it’ll be and a bag of chips. The Russo brothers hit all the right notes from start to finish, and the ending in particular is thoroughly satisfying.”

So ends the UK box office top 10 of the year so far. And with big releases like IT: Chapter 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming up, this year’s top 10 may even beat last year’s top 10 gross (approximately £523,006,040). We’ll just have to wait and see.

Also Read: What’s Next For Disney?

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With time running out for Disney to milk Marvel for all it’s worth (which is a lot, by the way), they’ve churned out one last origin story for us to feed on until Endgame is unleashed. The final piece in Stan Lee’s complex and colourful jigsaw.

Let’s talk about Captain Marvel.

Why now?

Captain Marvel was released on 27 February and is in cinemas in the UK.

In a nutshell

Captain Marvel is a Kree warrior caught up in an intergalactic battle between her people and the Skrulls, a race of shape-shifters aiming for universal conquest. She finds herself on Earth in the mid-90s 1995 and quickly discovers that she was once U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. Teaming up with a two-eyed Nick Fury, she sets about defeating the Skrulls and uncovering how she came to gain her incredible superpowers.

Who’s it for?

The movie is rated 12a, so some children may need an adult along. But apart from some mild Marvel-style violence, this one’s pretty tame.

Who’s in it?

Brie Larson played Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, and unsurprisingly, she’s very good. Danvers is actually not the easiest role to bring to life – her past is a bit complicated, and you’re not really sure if you’re supposed to be watching a human pilot with a penchant for karaoke or a battle-hardened alien being just trying to fulfil a mission. Either way, Larson pulls it off, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her in Endgame.

Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as Nick Fury, but with a twist or two. He’s considerably younger here (via some clever CGI), still retains both eyes, and isn’t quite as cynical as we find him later in the MCU. It was a nice change seeing Fury being somewhat less furious than usual.

The film also stars Ben “bad-guy voice” Mendelsohn as the leader of the Skrulls, Jude Law as Danvers’ Kree mentor and Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson (again, de-aged marvellously). It’s a relatively small but strong cast.

The good stuff

The good aspects of this film are obvious from the get-go, as are its negative qualities.

The cast is great, especially Larson. As I said, I’m looking forward to seeing how she integrates into the final Avengers movie, particularly under the direction of the Russo brothers. I imagine there’ll be some nice banter between her and the other super-powered heroes we’ve come to love.

Technically, the film looks and sounds good. It’s competently directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck with some great action sequences and stunning visuals. When Danvers comes to realise the full extent of her power later in the film, you genuinely get the sense that she’s fairly unstoppable.

And as with all Marvel movies, there’s a great deal of humour interspersed with the more serious moments throughout. It’s a fun movie, and most Marvel fans will enjoy it well enough.

However…

The not so good stuff

Maybe it’s the onset of Marvel fatigue, but I felt like I’d seen this movie already. While the narrative starts off with Danvers already in possession of her powers, it quickly rolls back into the usual MCU origin story formula: gets powers, learns more about powers, beats the Big Bad in the final act with said powers. This has all been done before, and better in some cases, unfortunately.

Secondly, the writing is often sub-standard for a Marvel movie. Some of the lines spouted by characters felt lazy and too by-the-book, especially in the case of Nicky Fury, who swung too far towards Hollywood cliché at times.

The filmmakers’ desire to empower women with this film and its lead character, while definitely admirable, becomes more of a distraction at times from the actual plot. It felt like some lines had been shoehorned in just to give the audience and critics a few sound-bites to take home. Yes, this is a film that gives younger viewers a great female role-model to emulate, but a blatantly-obvious pointed line like “I have nothing to prove to you” (addressed to a man) actually detracts from the flow of the narrative, like a big diversion sign by the side of the road.

Captain Marvel shouldn’t be deemed an excellent MCU film simply because it has a strong female lead, in the same way Black Panther shouldn’t be elevated just because it debunks racial stereotypes in its genre. Those plaudits should be gained on the merits of good film-making, which I believe Black Panther achieved more successfully, though not as successfully as many others suggested (I’m one of the few Marvel fans who wouldn’t rank it in my top five MCU movies).

My own gripes aside, Captain Marvel is a bit of an ‘almost’ movie: the writing is almost good, the humour is almost funny, the plot is almost engaging. But I felt like I’d seen it all before, and the filmmakers were in too much of a hurry to bang out one more quick origin story before it all wraps up next month.   

The bottom line

Captain Marvel is another enjoyable instalment in the MCU. Brie Larson grabs the lead role by the horns and is well-supported by a strong cast. It’s a solid enough movie, but it suffers from an overbearing need for its agenda to be pushed – had it been handled with a little more care, it could have been fantastic.

Verdict: (3.5 / 5)

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Do you agree with her list? What films are you most looking forward to this year? Leave your comments below.

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