The Controversy Continues

Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about comments made by Brie Larson and her film, Captain Marvel. The actress ruffled some feathers with the way she talked about a lack of diversity in the press corps covering the movie. People can point at and talk about the reasons for a more homogenous press such as the country’s demographics, the demographics of the geek subculture, and even things like gender norms and societal expectations. No matter the possible reasons ‘why’ the press around this movie is predominately male and white, I can’t think of anything wrong with someone wishing that more minorities and females were interested in covering movies. Of course, like many disconnected celebrities, Larson used phrasing that came off as condescending to white males and this upset many.

There were enough people upset that groups of them used social media to plan attacks against the movie’s scores on Rotten Tomatoes. This act of “review bombing” lead to the website removing scores and comments for whether or not the audience planned on seeing a film and silenced free speech in a way. So what happened when the movie was released? Well, the film was review bombed again. Now, if thousands of people went online and said they would not see this movie you would expect there to be noticeably fewer reviews upon its release. I mean, that was the point of the original “want to see” section of RT right? That’s not what happened though and within hours of the audience review section going live again, the movie was flooded with negative reviews.

I saw the movie yesterday and found myself giving it a B-. There are pacing issues in the first act, some forced humor, a lacking soundtrack, and a forgettable score. There were also some choices to fill in some Marvel Cinematic Universe history gaps I disagreed with, and some straight up retconning I also did not like. I actually like Larson as Carol Danvers and was pleasantly surprised at how well she did in the role. I, like many of you, was worried about her performance based on the trailers but I found the end result to be more than adequate. I loved some of the plot twists, absolutely dug the Skrulls, and LOVED the kitty kitty. In the scheme of 21 MCU films, this is mid-tier at best, but not terrible. This is why I do not buy the 1 out of 10 scores any more than those giving it a 10 out of 10. That’s hyperbole on both sides.

RELATED: Captain Marvel Makes Over $20.7M In Thursday Previews

Sow what do we make out of all of this? A few things; first the initial review bombing of the “want to see” was designed to punish Marvel and Larson for her comments. I wonder how many people that this was their first time ever on RT to vote on or leave comments for a film. Second, if that many people truly did not intend to see the film, then there should have been a large decrease in post-release reviews and those reviews should range somewhere between a C and B or 6 to 8 out of 10. Of course, there’ll be those that think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and others that genuinely hated it, but the dozen or so people I know personally to have seen it are all in the same range… except two, Fox Troilo and Nick Doll. Both of them are deeply disturbed and remember that Fox thought Venom was a good movie too. Thirdly, this controversy will have repercussions that cross franchises and could change the way the internet operates. I am all about free speech and the exercise thereof. Maybe this will see a new site rise up to challenge Rotten Tomatoes as the king of reviews.

CinemaScore

Congrats to @captainmarvel on your A #CinemaScore grade! Audiences loved it 👏 @brielarson @SamuelLJackson pic.twitter.com/FCjIp6FlnN

— CinemaScore (@CinemaScore) March 9, 2019

Let’s take a step back from the website of a vegetable pretending to be a fruit and look at Cinema Score. Captain Marvel got an A from the review site which some people believe is more accurate than Rotten Tomatoes due to the more limited scope of their surveys and the lack of severe troll interference. I am not sure of the demographics they polled, but I think this score is a little high for this movie. Like I said before, 10 out of 12 people I know gave this film a B or a C grade. I have no doubt that asking more preteen females their opinion on the film would lead to a higher score than that of adults of either gender, but there’s no way to tell for sure, but it definitely throughs another nail in the coffin of the idea that Captain Marvel has received fair and legitimate reviews from people on its site.

It’s going to be interesting to see the week two drop off in revenue which will give us a clue about multiple viewings and the legs this movie will have. I may be wrong from when I said this movie won’t make $800 million, but stranger things have happened at the box office.

What do you think about the Rotten Tomatoes controversy? What do you think about the CinemaScore? Let us know in the comments below!

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