Movie Reviews

The Movie Rating Dilemma: Or How I Learned How to Value Ratings

Published

2 months ago

March 8, 2026

The Movie Rating Dilemma: Or How I Learned How to Value Ratings

The act of judging — of assigning value to someone or something based on performance — is probably as old as humanity itself. You can safely assume that even cavemen were sizing each other up: Who hunts better? Who builds the sturdier shelter? Who’s pulling their weight?

Formalized systems came much later. The Roman Empire famously popularized the thumbs up/thumbs down gesture during gladiatorial games — a blunt but effective metric. By the 18th century, academic institutions began standardizing numerical grading systems. The 19th century introduced letter grades. And by the early 20th century, film criticism had entered the chat, with newspapers like the New York Daily publishing some of the earliest recorded movie grades (at least according to a quick Google dive — so take that with a grain of salt).

Fast forward to the 1970s, and modern film criticism as we know it began to crystallize. Roger Ebert popularized the four-star system, while he and Gene Siskel turned the thumbs up/thumbs down into a cultural mainstay on their television show — perhaps subconsciously echoing those ancient Roman gestures.

Now, I could theoretically try to confirm whether the Roman inspiration was intentional. But seeing as both critics have passed on, the only way to do that would involve a séance — and if horror movies have taught us anything, that never ends well. Sure, some people claim they’ve used an Ouija board, and nothing happened. Good for them. With my luck, I’d end up summoning Pazuzu, Candyman, a Djinn, and Satan all at once. So that’s a hard pass.

Jokes aside, in the past decade — arguably since the moment movie ratings were invented — people have increasingly questioned their value in entertainment and beyond. Albums, films, TV shows, books: every score feels like a potential battleground. (I don’t spend much time in Goodreads comment sections, but I can only imagine.)

But where did it all probably begin?

The Rotten Tomatoes Effect

I still remember the first time I heard about Rotten Tomatoes. It was on a radio show I used to catch after school called La Hora Señalada (the Spanish title for “High Noon”), where two veteran critics would break down new releases and revisit older classics. Before every discussion, they’d reference “the Rotten Tomatoes score,” like it was some cinematic barometer of truth.

I didn’t actually visit the site back then. Internet access at home was spotty — dial-up at best, nonexistent at worst — and not exactly a priority when my family had bigger concerns. But even without browsing it myself, I grew up watching cinephiles treat the Tomatometer like gospel. A high percentage meant “good.” A low one meant “bad.” Simple as that.

Over the past decade, that perception seems to have intensified. The site has been around since 1998, but the explosion of high-speed internet, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and the rise of online fandom culture amplified its influence. Suddenly, that big red or green number wasn’t just a reference point — it became ammunition in arguments.

So, how much should we actually care about it?

The answer isn’t straightforward.

First, it’s important to understand what that percentage represents. The Tomatometer isn’t an average movie rating — it’s the percentage of critics who gave the film a “fresh” (positive) review. That means a movie sitting at 80% doesn’t necessarily have critics raving about it. Many of those positive reviews could be modest 7/10s or 3.5/5s. The more telling metric is the smaller average rating number listed beneath the percentage — but let’s be honest, most people fixate on the big, bold score.

Filmmakers have criticized the site for oversimplifying complex critical opinions into a binary fresh/rotten system. And that critique isn’t entirely unfair. When nuanced reviews get distilled into a single color-coded badge, context gets lost.

Then there’s the audience score — which, at least historically, has been vulnerable to manipulation. The most infamous example came during the release of “Captain Marvel,” when organized groups review-bombed the film largely due to backlash against Brie Larson. The score plummeted before most people had even seen the movie. To their credit, Rotten Tomatoes implemented changes afterward to curb that kind of coordinated sabotage. Of course, the opposite phenomenon exists too: fans artificially inflating scores for films they love.

All of this reinforces one simple idea: the site is a reference point, not a verdict.

It can be useful — a quick snapshot of critical consensus — but it shouldn’t live on a pedestal. It can mislead. It can misrepresent nuance. And it absolutely may not reflect your own taste. There are plenty of low-rated films I adore. “Max Keeble’s Big Move” sits at 27%, and I’ll defend that gem every, any, what, where, why, when, and however time.

Another factor people rarely consider: critics are individuals with specific tastes. If a horror skeptic reviews a slasher or a rom-com enthusiast tackles an austere arthouse drama, their reaction may not align with your own sensibilities. That doesn’t make them wrong — it just means taste is subjective.

I believe the healthiest approach is to treat Rotten Tomatoes as a starting point. Read individual reviews. Seek out critics whose tastes align with yours. Cross-reference with other aggregators like Metacritic, which uses a weighted average system rather than a binary model. (Full disclosure: I haven’t relied on it heavily myself, but many cinephiles prefer its methodology.)

In the end, no percentage can replace your own experience. The most reliable metric will always be the one you assign after the credits roll.

Also Related to Movie Rating Dilemma: The Death of the Opening Weekend: What Actually Defines Success in Film Now

The Value

In preparation for this article, I ran a small poll — and the results were both surprising and completely predictable. Much like politics (and, frankly, everything else these days), people are deeply divided on how much value they place on ratings. What caught me off guard, though, was that after hundreds of votes, the majority leaned toward the “don’t care” camp.

That lines up with a noticeable trend on platforms like Letterboxd, where more and more users are ditching the traditional star system in favor of a simple “heart” — or nothing at all.

So why is that happening?

From the responses and patterns I observed, one recurring reason is fluidity. Many people say their film ratings change constantly in their heads. A movie that felt like a four yesterday might feel like a three-and-a-half next month. Updating scores repeatedly can become tedious, even exhausting. But the bigger issue seems to be perception. People worry — sometimes rightly so— that their ratings will be misinterpreted. For some, three stars is a solid, positive endorsement. For others, anything below four feels like a dismissal. That disconnect can spiral into unnecessary debates — or worse, online pile-ons.

Which brings me to what I like to call the comparison game.

This is where things get absurd. It’s when someone compares potatoes to lettuce. Sure, they both grow from the ground. They might share space on a burger plate. But beyond that? Completely different textures, flavors, and purposes.

Recently, I rated “Dhurandhar” four stars — the same score I gave “One Battle After Another.” A follower asked how I could possibly see those films as equals. But that’s the assumption baked into the comparison game: that identical ratings equal identical value. They don’t. One film might be a potato, the other a lettuce — or an apple. What do they meaningfully have to do with each other?

The root issue seems simple: people take their favorite art personally. If I love X and give it four stars, you’d better love it just as much — or at least rate it the “correct” way. Otherwise, the pitchforks come out. Disagreement isn’t just disagreement; it becomes a perceived attack.

And that’s where ratings shift from being shorthand expressions of personal taste to symbols people defend as if they were moral positions. In theory, a rating is just a snapshot of how something worked for one individual at one moment in time. In practice, it can feel like a referendum on identity.

Which says less about the numbers themselves — and more about how much we’ve invested in them.

When you rate a movie, do you stop and cross-reference every prior rating to ensure consistency across unrelated genres? The only time that kind of comparative calibration makes sense to me is within a contained body of work — ranking a director’s filmography, an actor’s performances, or entries in a franchise.

There are even stranger edge cases. I’ve given “The Room” a perfect score — not because it’s “objectively” great in a traditional sense, but because, for what it is, and what it accidentally achieves, it feels like a specific kind of perfection. Meanwhile, others might rate it a two-star disaster and still love it just as passionately. The number doesn’t always tell the whole emotional truth.

Now, for the positives.

As one commenter on the site put it, “rating forces us to confront the tough question: how much did this film really work for me?” A rating compels clarity. It forces you to distill your feelings into a decision.

In a way, this circles back to the heart-versus-stars debate. Clicking a heart on Letterboxd leaves a lot open to interpretation. Say you heart both “Dog Day Afternoon” and “12 Angry Men.” Great — but do you value them equally? Which one affected you more? Which one would you revisit first? Without a rating (or a detailed review), we’re left guessing.

And that ties into another undeniable reality: we’re living in a low-attention-span era. You can write a thoughtful, beautifully argued review — and many people simply won’t read it. On fast-scrolling platforms, especially, the rating becomes a kind of headline. A shorthand signal. It tells followers, at a glance, whether you found something worthwhile.

Conclusion

Personally, I’ll always champion ratings.

Yes, they’re a double-edged sword. They can flatten nuance, spark unnecessary outrage, or reduce complex feelings to a tidy number. But they can also serve a practical purpose — if we’re willing to understand how to read them. There’s probably an argument to be made that audiences need a bit more education on interpreting ratings as shorthand rather than gospel.

Some critics have come up with creative systems that embrace that shorthand in interesting ways. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel boiled it down to the now-iconic thumbs metric — elegantly simple, instantly readable. Dan Murrell leans into a more textual breakdown, while Cody Leach blends a numbered score with contextual explanation. Different approaches, same goal: distilling a reaction into something digestible without (ideally) stripping it of meaning.

It’s not easy. The more you think about cinema as art — deeply personal, highly subjective — the more assigning it a number can start to feel reductive. For some critics, the very act of rating becomes a burden, as if they’re forced to quantify something that resists quantification.

Are ratings imperfect? Absolutely. Are they reductive? Sometimes. But they’re also efficient, clarifying, and — when used thoughtfully — a meaningful extension of the conversation rather than its replacement. In a media landscape built on quick takes and endless content, ratings function as a kind of necessary evil. They’re a snapshot, not the whole portrait. When used responsibly — and interpreted thoughtfully — they don’t have to replace the conversation. They can simply be the entry point to it.

Published

3 hours ago

May 2, 2026

Press Room

1986 Movie Reviews – Blue City, Jo Jo Dancer, No Retreat No Surrender, and Saving Grace | The Nerdy

by Sean P. Aune | May 2, 2026

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s May 2, 1986, and we’re off to see Blue City, Jo Jo Dancer, No Retreat No Surrender, and Saving Grace.

Blue City

As thrillers go… this is one of them.

Billy Turner (Judd Nelson) returns home to Blue City, Florida and immediately learns his father was killed. He sets about trying to solve his father’s murder and reunites with some old friends to help him on his mission.

Awful. Simply awful.

Billy seems to be some sort of copy of Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop, and any time he talks about his father’s death it seems like an afterthought.

Add in he hooks up with Annie (Ally Sheedy), the younger sister of his friend Joey (David Caruso), and neither of them seem all that bothered after Joey gets killed, you really have no idea who these characters are.

It’s a very confused film and no one seems to know exactly what tone they are going for.

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

A surprisingly intimate reflection at one’s own shortcomings after one of the most public falls in history.

Jo Jo Dancer (Richard Pryor) suffers a horrible accident after freebasing cocaine, and he uses his time in the hospital to reflect on his life and what led him to this moment in time.

Yes, it is the world’s most thinly veiled look back at one’s life. Pryor famously was horrifically burned while taking drugs, and this was his way of coming back into the public eye.

It certainly is not a perfect film, but it is engaging and touching. It feels like a man who truly wanted to explore his own past and didn’t know any way to do it than through what he always knew, entertaining people.

A surprisingly candid look at one’s own life and allowing the world to take the journey with him.

No Retreat, No Surrender

Have you ever watched a movie so bad you wish it would punch you through the screen to put you out of your misery?

Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney) relocates to Seattle after his father’s dojo in Sherman Oaks, California is taken over by an organized crime syndicate takes it by force. Their plan? To take over every dojo in the country.

… do I need to tell you anything else about the ‘plot?’ This movie was beyond awful and I think the only reason it still exists in any form is it shows off a very young Jean-Claude Van Damme.

This is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in some time, and that’s saying a lot.

Saving Grace

It’s nice to be surprised by a movie, and it rarely happens twice in the same week.

Cardinal Bellini (Tom Conti) becomes Pop Leo XIV. After a year in the position, he gets locked out of the Vatican accidentally and decides to take the moment to reconnect with the average people. He goes to a little village he was aware of and helps them rebuild their aqueduct. Not only does he have that to contend with, but the local hoodlum, Ciolino (Edward James Olmos) doesn’t want him to succeed as he makes his money from everyone depending on him.

Yes, the fact that the fictional Pope is Leo XIV wasn’t lost on me while I was watching it.

It’s not a great movie, but I found myself engaged, and charmed by Conti’s performance. I’m not quite sure why Olmos was playing a rural Italian, but it is what it is.

It’s a charming and heartwarming film, and certainly will keep you entertained.

1986 Movie Reviews will continue on May 9, 2026, with Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit.

Movie Reviews

Kara Movie Review – Gulte

Published

15 hours ago

May 2, 2026

Press Room

2/5

02 Hrs 41 Mins | Action Thriller | 30-04-2026

Cast – Dhanush, Mamitha Baiju, K. S. Ravikumar, Karunas, Jayaram, Prithvi Rajan, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Sreeja Ravi, M. S. Bhaskar, Aadukalam Naren and others

Director – Vignesh Raja

Producer – Ishari K. Ganesh

Banner – Vels Film International & Think Studios

Music – G. V. Prakash Kumar

Dhanush is one of those very few lead actors in India currently who are completing films at a quick pace and releasing them in theatres. He released three films(i.e. Kuberaa, Idli Kadai & Tere Ishk Mein) last year and is set to release at least three films this year as well. For his first film in 2026, he teamed up with director Vignesh Raja and made an intense action thriller, Kara. Vignesh Raja’s last film, Por Thozhil, did extremely well. It was one of those very rare films which worked both critically and commercially.

When a film in the combination of Dhanush and Vignesh Raja was announced, the expectations among the audience around the film skyrocketed and the buzz around the film went up further when, Mamitha Baiju, was announced as the female lead in the film. After creating enough curiosity among the audience with the trailer, the film was released in theatres today. Did the director, Vignesh Raja, come up with an engaging film yet again? Did Dhanush score a blockbuster with, Kara? How did Dhanush & Mamitha Baiju, pair look on screen? Did G. V. Prakash Kumar, come up with a memorable album yet again for a film starring, Dhanush? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

A good Samaritan father(K. S. Ravikumar) based out of a remote village in Tamilnadu, fights against a bank which manipulated him and his fellow villagers and grabbed their land. The son(Dhanush) who earlier ran away from his family to start a business, returns to his village to sell his family’s farming land and start a hotel in a town. What happens when the son returns to his village? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

The role of Karasaami aka Kara is tailor-made for Dhanush. We have seen him doing similar roles multiple times in the past. There’s nothing special in the performance he delivered for Kara. It’s just a standard template-driven performance. Mamitha Baiju is a surprise package. She did a role which is a complete contrast to the usual youthful and joyful roles she played in her earlier films. She got a very limited role in the film but she delivered a very good performance in whatever screentime she had.

K. S. Ravikumar in the role of Kandhasaami, delivered his career-best performance. As a loving father, he did a superb job in emotional sequences. The film had many notable actors and almost all of them performed well but their efforts were undone by poor writing and aimless direction.

Technicalities:

Just like most of the Tamil movies, Kara, too has stunning visuals. The cinematographer, Theni Eswar, captured the raw and rustic rural Tamilnadu, very well with his camera throughout the film. G. V. Prakash Kumar, tried his best to lift the lifeless sequences with his background score but it did not work. Editing by Sreejith Sarang, could have been much better. At least twenty minutes of the film could have been easily edited to make it at least a bit better. Especially, the second half of the film drags on forever. Let’s talk about the writer and director’s, Alfred Prakash & Vignesh Raja, work in detail in the analysis section.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠K. S. Ravikumar’s Performance

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Beaten to Death Storyline
2.⁠ ⁠Bland Screenplay
3.⁠ ⁠Poor Writing & Direction
4.⁠ ⁠Lengthy Runtime

Analysis:

Movie Name – Idli Kadai
Release Date – 01st October 2025
Story Line – A good samaritan father based out of a remote village in Tamilnadu runs a hotel and expects his son to continue his legacy by running the hotel after he passes away. But, he wants to move to the city and have a better life. After the father passes away, the son realises his mistake, shifts base to the village, reopens his father’s hotel and continues running it.

And, now

Movie Name – Kara
Release Date – 30th April 2026
Story Line – A good Samaritan father based out of a remote village in Tamilnadu, fights against a bank which manipulated him and his fellow villagers and grabbed their land. The estranged son returns to the village to sell the land and use that money to open a hotel in a town. After his father passes away, the son realises his mistake and fights against the bank and eventually gets the villagers’ land documents from the bank.

Both the storylines sound similar, don’t they? While watching, Kara, it is not your fault if you start to wonder why in the world, Dhanush, agreed to do two films with similar storylines consecutively. The only difference between the two films is that in, Idli Kadai, the son runs the hotel to fulfil his father’s wish and in, Kara, the son turns into Robin Hood to fulfil his father’s wish. At least, Idli Kadai, for a major part was truthful to its family drama genre. But, Kara, ended up becoming neither a family drama nor an action thriller.

The director, Vignesh Raja, previously crafted a gripping crime thriller, Por Thozhil, which keeps audiences on the edge of their seats throughout its runtime. Once again, while watching Kara, it’s not your fault if you begin to wonder whether it is the same director behind both films. It was surprising to see Vignesh Raja and his writer, Alfred Prakash, coming up with such a bland and unexciting screenplay. The writing of heist episodes and the way they were executed were laughable to say the least. There was not even a single sequence in the film which was written and executed intelligently. The Robin Hood-like hero will not have any plan to rob the bank branches. All he does is to wear a mask, step inside the branch, threaten the bank employees with a gun and rob the branches one after the other. How did the director convince Dhanush to do the film with such a bland screenplay? What was Dhanush thinking while accepting the film? There will be at least a few good episodes even in the bad films of Dhanush but Kara is an exception. There is not even a single sequence throughout the film that excites the audience.

Overall, Kara is a forgettable film from Dhanush and Vignesh Raja. The beaten-to-death storyline, boring screenplay, unexciting narration and lengthy runtime, made it a painful watch. At least the first half was watchable but the film lost the track completely in the second half and tests patience with each passing minutes. Apart from a brilliant performance from K. S. Ravikumar, the film offers nothing and is sure to become one of the biggest flops in Dhanush’s career.

Bottomline – Boring Heist

Rating – 2/5

Tags Kara Kara Review

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is likely to remind horror fans of better movies – The Independent | Southern Utah’s #1 Source for Arts, Events & Entertainment

Published

1 day ago

May 1, 2026

Press Room

Movie Review: “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is likely to remind horror fans of better movies – The Independent | Southern Utah’s #1 Source for Arts, Events & Entertainment

MOVIE REVIEW: “LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY” (R)
Grade: C

For horror fans out there miffed at the very idea that Lee Cronin has somehow earned the right to put his name above the title of his latest project (something generally reserved for horror icons like John Carpenter and Wes Craven) even though he only has a couple of features to his credit (“The Hole in the Ground,” “Evil Dead Rise”), just know that this is the least of this movie’s problems. Also, let it be known that this wasn’t done out of arrogance. It’s been reported that producer Jason Blum made the suggestion to put Cronin’s name atop the title as to not confuse casual moviegoers. The last thing the team behind this gore-fest want is folks walking in thinking that this is a new entry in the Brendan Fraser “Mummy” franchise which this film most certainly is not. Fear not, though, as it’s looking like we’ll be seeing a new installment in that particular series sometime in 2027. As for “Lee Cronin’s latest, it’s an entirely different beast and in the end, it’s barely a “Mummy” movie at all. I mean, I’m all for liberties being taken in a modern reimagining of a familiar property but honestly, if you’re going to stray this far, maybe just call it something else.

In this blood-soaked take on “The Mummy,” journalist Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) and his loving wife Larissa (Laia Costa) relocate the family to Egypt for Charlie’s latest job and ultimately, they are plunged into every parent’s worst nightmare after their young daughter Katie (Emily Mitchell) goes missing. Shortly after the disappearance, the Cannon family, which includes Katie’s siblings Maude (Billie Roy) and Sebastian (Shylo Molina), do what they can to pick up the emotional pieces.

Cut to; 8 long years later. The Cannon family now reside in New Mexico, and they get the shock of their lives after receiving a call from the authorities informing them that Katie has been found but as the Cannon family quickly discover, she is not at all herself. But then, I suppose spending an extended period of time trapped in a sarcophagus would have a strange effect on a person.

Upon watching this film, one might speculate that Cronin approached the powers that be about doing a follow up to his own “Evil Dead Rise” but after getting turned down, he couldn’t take no for an answer, so he just opted to do a sort of repurposed version of “The Mummy” instead. And that’s pretty much what this movie plays like; A fusion of “Evil Dead’ and “The Exorcist” with a little “Hereditary,” “The Omen,” and “Poltergeist” thrown in for good measure.

When it comes to bringing the gore factor, Cronin ain’t no slouch. Those with a pure love for carnage candy will find plenty to grasp on to here. That said, this take on “The Mummy” is dour, ugly, brutal, and often unpleasant and even though Cronin is perfectly adept at crafting the proceedings, it does get to a point where the movie feels like it’s simply more interested in making us squirm than anything else.

Of the performances here, Laia Costa has some nice moments as a mom who tries to convince herself that there’s nothing wrong with her daughter but Reynor (an actor I’ve suggested for quite some time would make the perfect James Bond) spends the majority of the film looking at the strange happenings around him in bug-eyed fashion. The standout of the cast is Natalie Grace whose work as the older version of Katie is fittingly terrifying.

As was the case with Leigh Whannell’s disappointing adaptation of “Wolf Man,” “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” does attempt to say something about one’s fear of not being able to protect their children but here, it’s a somewhat meager attempt because any such subtext is all but buried in an endless sea of ick. This is to say nothing of a handful of plot points that are either underexplained or make very little to no sense. Take, for instance, the medical profession as presented in this film. These so-called professionals are pretty quick to send Katie home even though there’s clearly something wrong with her. Also, where exactly was this girl for the last 8 years? “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” treats this aspect of the proceedings as an inconvenient afterthought.

Again, there’s very little here that feels like “The Mummy.” Yes, there’s a sarcophagus and an Egyptian locale, but these things feel shoehorned in. Beyond that, for all of Cronin’s abilities when it comes to crafting fittingly shocking set pieces and skillfully working with a barrage of creative practical effects, his take on a property made famous by a decades-old classic Universal monster movie starring Boris Karloff feels pretty darn deadite-heavy by comparison. What’s more, with a runtime of 2 hours and 14 minutes, it all feels awfully long-winded for a film of this nature. At the end of the day, while this isn’t a bad film (for all its flaws, it’s more effective than the 2017 Tom Cruise headlined-take), what “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is most successful at doing is reminding us of a handful of better horror movies.