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https://scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3084895/12-movies-netflix-critics-hate-audiences-love-spenser News & Trends
12 movies on Netflix that critics hate but audiences love – from Spenser Confidential and Angel Has Fallen, to Coffee and Kareem
Coronavirus lockdown has provided a captive audience to streaming services like Netflix and it seems we will watch whatever we like regardless of the reviews – here are the most popular bad movies
The good, the bad and the watched – critics and audiences do not always agree on Netflix’s movies such as Spenser Confidential starring Mark Wahlberg, which the streaming service says has been seen by 85 million member households. Photo: @film.consigli/Instagram
Netflix said in its first-quarter earnings report that 85 million member households had watched its original movie Spenser Confidential. With a 38 per cent Rotten Tomatoes critic score (and a 56 per cent audience score), it's the latest Netflix movie with poor reviews to gain popularity.
Netflix has a history of touting the popularity of some movies that critics hate. But now it doesn't need to say anything for people to notice how popular those movies are. In February, Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its top titles right on the service for all to see (Netflix counts a view if an account watches two minutes of a show or movie, which is how it calculates the lists).
The streaming search engine Reelgood has been providing Business Insider weekly lists of Netflix's most popular movies, based on the streamer's daily lists, for the past four weeks. From Spenser Confidential to Coffee and Kareem, it's clear that viewers can't get enough of critically panned Netflix movies.
But it goes beyond originals. Licensed titles like M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender and The Roommate, both shunned by critics and audiences upon their initial releases, have appeared on the top lists.
We compiled a list of the most “rotten” movies to appear on the weekly lists over the last month and ranked them from bad to worst. A movie is “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes if it has a critic score below 60 per cent. We broke any ties with audience scores (and 10 of the movies also have rotten audience scores).
Below are the most popular bad movies on Netflix, according to critics.
12. Outbreak (1995)
Netflix description: “When a deadly virus spreads throughout a small town, a team of army doctors works to contain it before the military can execute an extreme alternative.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 59 per cent
Audience score: 56 per cent
What critics said: “The irony is that Outbreak, for all its lurid finesse, ends up leaving us more dazed than terrified.” – Entertainment Weekly
11. Badland (2019)
Netflix description: “A detective with a license to kill roams the old west to wrangle confederate war criminals and meets a pioneer woman who throws his journey off track.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 43 per cent
Audience score: 51 per cent
What critics said: “Badland is ultimately too beholden to the past to be as energised as it should be.” – Los Angeles Times
10. Aftermath (2017)
Netflix description: “After an air traffic controller's mistake results in a tragic accident, a man who lost his wife and daughter seeks answers from the man responsible.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 41 per cent
Audience score: 25 per cent
What critics said: “The movie shows little interest in either dramatic context or the realities of human behaviour.” – AV Club
9. 2012 (2009)
Netflix description: “When a flood of natural disasters threatens to destroy the world, a divorced dad desperately attempts to save his family in this doomsday thriller.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39 per cent
Audience score: 47 per cent
What critics said: “2012 is so long, and its special effects are at once so outrageous and so thunderously predictable, that by the time I lurched from the theatre I felt that three years had actually passed and that the apocalypse was due any second.” – New Yorker
8. Angel Has Fallen (2019)
Netflix description: “Secret Service agent Mike Banning is caught in the crossfire when he's framed for a deadly attack on the president and forced to run for his life.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39 per cent
Audience score: 93 per cent
What critics said: “If this type of no-brow entertainment is your thing, you may find something to like in Angel Has Fallen but that doesn't mean you need what these guys are reselling.” – RogerEbert.com
7. Spenser Confidential (2020 – Netflix original)
Netflix description: “Spenser, an ex-cop and ex-con, teams up with aspiring fighter Hawk to uncover a sinister conspiracy tied to the deaths of two Boston police officers.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 38 per cent
Audience score: 56 per cent
What critics said: “There are many things to like about Mark Wahlberg as an actor, but he's not very good when his characters have to put their thinking cap on.” – Newsday
6. Love Wedding Repeat (2020 – Netflix original)
Netflix description: “Different versions of the same day unfold as Jack juggles difficult guests, unbridled chaos and potential romance at his sister's wedding.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 34 per cent
Audience score: 38 per cent
What critics said: “At least the Italian scenery and the stranded actors look good. Just don't mistake this charmless, mirthless and shameless rip-off of Four Wedding and a Funeral and Groundhog Day for a comedy with actual laughs.” – Rolling Stone
5. The Players Club (1998)
Description: “Looking to make ends meet, a young single mother paying for college and childcare gets introduced to the fast moneymaking world of stripping.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 31 per cent
Audience score: 85 per cent
What critics said: “Rich with colourful dialogue and characters, it's sometimes ungainly but never boring, and there's a core of truth in its portrait of exotic dancers.” – Chicago Sun-Times
4. The Main Event (2020 – Netflix original)
Netflix description: “Using special powers from a magical mask, a young WWE fan causes chaos when he enters a wrestling competition and fights an intimidating rival.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 25 per cent
Audience score: 34 per cent
What critics said: “The Main Event is harmless, sure, but it's also completely disposable. By the final 3-count, it has already disappeared.” – Detroit News
3. Coffee and Kareem (2020 – Netflix original)
Netflix description: “An inept Detroit cop must team up with his girlfriend's foul-mouthed young son when their first crack at bonding time uncovers a criminal conspiracy.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 19 per cent
Audience score: 32 per cent
What critics said: “A profoundly irritating, cacophonous mess.” – Tribune News Service
2. The Last Airbender (2010)
Netflix description: “In a world ravaged by the Fire nation's aggression toward the peaceful Air, Water and Earth nations, a young boy holds the key to restoring peace.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 5 per cent
Audience score: 30 per cent
What critics said: “One is bored and stupefied by what seems like an eternity of vacuous spectacle, cod-Buddhist tosh and clunking dialogue.” – Time Out
1. The Roommate (2011)
Netflix description: “While acclimating to campus life, college freshman Sara begins to realise that her new roommate, Rebecca, is becoming obsessed with her.”
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 4 per cent
Audience score: 27 per cent
What critics said: “There are some interestingly nasty moments and some chills, but it's predictable and derivative.” – The Guardian
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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
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