Examining the Critic-Audience Divide

Warner Bros.' latest additions to the superhero genre have had a tough time with the critics. In the previous five years their only film to have gained over 50% on Rotten Tomatoes' 'tomatometer' (a score based on hundreds of critics' opinions) has been last year's Wonder Woman. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) and most recently Justice League (2017) all received overwhelmingly negative critical responses. Yet, interestingly, each have overall positive Rotten Tomatoes audience scores. Justice League's reaches 76%, for instance, compared to 40% on the tomatometer. Clearly opinions differ between critics and audiences (by a whopping 36% in this case). But why is this?

Firstly, let's bear in mind that reviews are, by nature, based on subjective individual opinion.  Impressions of 'good' or 'bad' stem from personal experience (which is unique for all of us) therefore labelling any film accordingly is just a matter of taste.

That said, an argument can be made for why superhero films stand out as particularly difficult to judge. Let's use Justice League as an example. First of all, the film is based on a number of comic book characters as well as specific comic books themselves. Each of the members of the 'league' - the protagonists of the film - have various comic book series of their own, and also feature together in multiple series about the league itself. Fans of the comics who see the film will therefore offer a unique critique on the characters and events it depicts, due to their specific background knowledge of them. It seems this gave many a greater appreciation for the movie. The impression from fan reviews across the web is, as one reviewer puts it, that the film "is not made for John Smith at whatever newspaper, it's made for... [someone] who has read comics his entire life and wants to see them brought to life". Implied here, is that critics (generally) do not have this background with the source material, thus are unable to fully admire how the film relates to it. This explains some of the divide with audiences.

Fans of Justice League comics would have been able to

 appreciate details and easter eggs in the film adaptation

that the rest of us wouldn't. 

Another factor that may contribute is where Justice League sits in the film landscape. Due to supposed competition with Marvel's superhero franchise, the Warner Bros. movie was heavily compared to 2012's Avengers: Assemble - which similarly saw a team-up of superheroes against a common threat, but within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The comparison influenced Justice League both in the build up to it's release and when critics came to review it, some even referring to the film as "DC's answer to the Avengers". Likewise as part of Warner's Bros.' DC Extended Universe (DCEU), many reviewers couldn't help but judge the movie against the previous films in the franchise. One critic, in fact, warned readers that "If you loved 'Wonder Woman', don't see this movie". Rather than being reviewed in isolation, it seems many let their feelings toward other films influence their judgement. Indeed, as movie critics, many were likely to not only have watched but written about most of these films, inevitably engraining them into their minds. The same cannot be said for the casual moviegoer. Perhaps they had a more positive experience with the film because of this.

Given the aforementioned subjectivity of this issue, there's sure to be further influencing factors I have not mentioned here, but hopefully this explains some of the reasons critics and audiences can be be so divided when it comes to superhero movies. Any film that is part of a franchise, based at all on source material or competing with similar products (never mind a combination of all three) carries with it such baggage that viewer opinion will inevitably be split.

At the end of the day, Justice League underperformed at the box office - wielding the lowest worldwide gross of any entry into the DCEU to date. It may be that Warner Bros. are aiming to appeal more specifically to comic book fans and are thus willing to take the hit from critics and loss of audience members. But if research for this blog has taught me anything, it's that profit is almost always the main priority of major studios. It's therefore unlikely that the next installments into the DCEU will intentionally follow in Justice League's footsteps in this regard, but rather shall aspire to maximise ticket sales through mass appeal. How this will effect the opinion gap between critics and audiences is yet to be seen. But with Aquaman set for release later this year and Suicide Squad 2 production plans just announced, we're sure to find out before long.