If you read any of my movie reviews you will notice that I always post the Rotten Tomato score just to the right of poster. Rotten Tomatoes (RT) is a online site that accumulates critic reviews on a particular movie, assigns each review as either fresh or rotten, and uses the ratio of fresh to rotten scores in order to construct the movies rotten tomato precentage. Contrary to the opinion of some, this is not a rating on how good the movie is as opposed to Metacritic, rather its a percentage of how well liked a film is. For example, Star Wars Rogue One received an 85% on RT. This does not mean the movie is a 8.5 out of ten, it does mean that 85% of critics gave Rogue One a positive review (or a score of at least 3/5). Scores over 60% are considered fresh, any score under is considered rotten and marked with a green splat.
Working at a movie theatre I see plenty of guests who are turned off from a movie they were looking forward too as a result of its low rotten tomato score. Many times I urge them to reconsider, even if I didn't like the movie myself. Even when a movie has a nine precent on RT like the recent Fifty Shades Darker, that still means that a tenth of professionally paid movie critics liked the movie enough to endorse it with a positive review. Statistically speaking there is a 1/10 chance of you liking that movie, and maybe you won't just like it you'll love it. On RT, extremely high scores are indistinguishable from the moderately high scores, both are represented as fresh. Under this system bias is minimized preventing a skew as a result of an extremely high or extremely low score (Im looking at you Metacritic). So you could skip out on that movie that has a 20% on RT, but you could also be robbing yourself of the chance of really liking the movie. Some will see a movie, love it, and bash rotten tomatoes for giving it a low score. To them I say there is no mistake, they enjoyed a movie that a heathy 50+ Critics also enjoyed.
When a movie comes out and is rated low on RT I do get a little discouraged, It's stupid to ignore the correlation between RT scores and the movies I like. However there is always part of me that optimistic, a sliver that desires to be surprised. Many times I'm disappointed, it is popular opinion afterall, but sometimes I come out with a smile on my face. These are movies I remember, celebrate especially, almost like I have a personal bond with it because many others passed it by. Some examples include Self/less (19%), X-Men Apocalypse (48%), Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (35%) and Transporter Refueled (15%), all of which I liked (in some cases loved) despite its negative Rotten Tomato score. Tonight I'm seeing The Great Wall which holds a 35% and Fist Fight at 20%, maybe one of these films will surprise me in a similar way.
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