With Suicide Squad set for nationwide and global release this Friday, the latest comic book movie adaptation from Warner Bros and DC has already been ripped to shreds by many film critics, with the aggregator site RottenTomatoes giving it a paltry 33% rating, a certified rotten score. And now some fans, who’ve not yet seen the film, have launched a petition asking for RottenTomatoes to be pulled down from the Internet.
The film, running under the now ironically apt tagline “ Worst heroes ever,” tells the story of a band of supervillains forced to join a black ops mission when something goes awry in the fictional Midway City. The critics have not pulled their punches, with Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle writing: “If you know someone you really can't stand - not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest - send that person a ticket for Suicide Squad."
In response, nearly 5,000 fans of the film have jumped to its defence, demanding that the website be taken down. “We need this site to be shut down because its critics always give the DC Extended Universe movies unjust bad reviews,” the post claims.
Man of Steel, which relaunched the Superman franchise, scored 55% under RottenTomatoes algorithm, which compared to a 75% rating from fans, while Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice only rated 27% compared to the 65% of movie fans who liked it.
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Worried that the negative press will affect the future of Warner Bros superhero films, one Bangladeshi commenter explained why he had added his support to the petition. “Well, because in this day and age of social media, news articles and reviews of all things get spread very fast, and are often taken very seriously. Unfair reviews can end up ruining people’s expectations to the point where they choose not to watch the movie at all.”
Other claims of a grand conspiracy by the RottenTomatoes website to deliberately collude to destroy Warner Bros’ reputation fell on deaf ears, however, with more than one user pointing out that Warner Bros actually owns the RottenTomatoes website.
While other aggregated review sites like MetaCritic and Critics Round-Up have also unfavourably reviewed Suicide Squad (scoring it 46 and 44 respectively), the popularity of RottenTomatoes has seen it become the focal point of fan ire. Time will tell whether or not the angry viewers will change their minds when they see the film later this week. In the meantime, you can read the Newstalk review of Suicide Squad here.
