Rotten Tomatoes becomes the scapegoat for frustrated Suicide Squad fans

Review aggregate site enrages DC comics fans, who don’t agree with critics worldwide, including SCMP.com’s, who’ve panned the supervillain ensemble movie. 17,000 signed a petition to shut it down

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Will Smith (Deadshot) and Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) in a still from Suicide Squad. Photo: Warner Bros

Published: 11:18am, 5 Aug 2016Updated: 11:49am, 5 Aug 2016

The critics are wrong about Suicide Squad, according to an online eruption from DC Universe’s fans. The small but loud revolt against critical opinion is demanding the closure of Rotten Tomatoes, where Suicide Squad ’s aggregate rating among critics is hovering at about 30 per cent. The negative reviews are “unjust,” the fan uprising says.

It’s an odd target for a campaign that aims to democratise the critical analysis of films, since that’s basically what Rotten Tomatoes was founded to do in the first place. Rotten Tomatoes is a website that aggregates and evaluates the reviews of critics who work for publications across the globe. Their film ratings – expressed as a percentage – are meant to provide an overall look at how the film is faring in the opinions of those critics. And yet, for those signing the change.org petition demanding Rotten Tomatoes’ closure, the site is the easiest target to pick as a stand-in for the entire idea of a critic’s value.

Jared Leto as The Joker in a scene from the film.

“Critics always give The DC Extended Universe movies unjust Bad Reviews,” the petition’s call to arms reads. Its founder, Abdullah Coldwater of Alexandria, Egypt, later clarified that he doesn’t think his petition will actually shut down Rotten Tomatoes, but will instead “deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people that disagree with their reviews.”

In just a few hours, the petition became the target of widespread ridicule. It appears that a good portion of the 17,000 people who have signed it did so in order to make fun of the petition in the comments. Several signers used their comment box to gleefully point out that Rotten Tomatoes, supposedly the epicentre of an unfair, anti-DC campaign among critics, has links to Warner Bros, DC Entertainment’s parent company.