Captain Marvel, the latest superhero film to “grace” cinemas worldwide, received mixed reviews from critics after it was released early Friday morning.
San Diego Reader’s Matthew Lickona was a bit disappointed after watching it:
“The film may be about women breaking their shackles, but the lead actress feels kept in check for much of the picture. Humor winds up being provided by Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury, heart by Lashana Lynch’s Maria Rambeau, and pathos by…well, it ain’t Larson.”
New Yorker’s Anthony Lane seemed to enjoy the film:
“Superhero cinema has lectured us, ad infinitum, on the responsibility that is conferred by extraordinary gifts. Praise be to Larson, for reminding us that they can be bringers of fun.”
As for regular moviegoers… well, they apparently disliked the movie so much that Rotten Tomatoes has refrained from posting any featured reviews:
Instead, the site is simply showing their usual “Tomatometer” alongside the audience score:
So, 81% of the 281 critics who viewed the film liked it, yet only a dismal 36% of over 4,000 users did as well.
This isn’t looking good for the Marvel Universe franchise or Brie Larson, the movie’s “intersectional feminist” star.
But, wait. This is where things start to get a bit strange.
Even though there are supposedly only 4,567 user ratings (as of 10:40am on 3/8/2019), earlier this morning, one viewer noticed there were almost 60,000 ratings on the site! Luckily, he was able to take a screenshot.
Below is a quick side-by-side comparison of the number of user ratings that existed at around 3:00am Pacific (left) and 10:40am (right):
58,365 – 4,567 = 53,798 missing user ratings.
Where did they all go?
Is Rotten Tomatoes purposely manipulating its audience score!?
Another viewer noticed the percentage of the people who liked the movie barely increased after the deletion of tens of thousands of user ratings:
“Imagine being so bad that you delete 54k ratings and it goes from 32% to only 36%.”
Have you seen Captain Marvel? If so, what did you think? Leave a comment below.
UPDATE #1: In case you have any doubts, here is proof Rotten Tomatoes has removed the majority of Captain Marvel’s user ratings –
Wayback Machine archive link #1
Wayback Machine archive link #2
UPDATE #2: It appears that many of the positive user reviews were made by fake accounts. Notice how these profiles have only reviewed Captain Marvel and were created this month (click each image to enlarge) –
See the audience reviews here.
H/T: anons ynuqiCYz, +dHzh5UU, m1aMrr1J, sowEMFoS
Main Image Credit: Hollywood.com