Netflix Says “’Bright” Success Proves Film Critics Are “Disconnected from Mass Appeal”

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Despite getting thrashed by critics, Netflix’s first tentpole production, “Bright,” ended up being quite the hit: while it barely managed 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of the site's audience rated it positively. The movie also drew over 11 million viewers, cementing a sequel. Netflix says this is proof that movie critics don’t matter as much anymore.

“Critics are an important part of the artistic process, but [they are] pretty disconnected from the commercial prospects of a film,” chief content officer Sarandos said. “[Film critics] speak to specific audiences who care about quality, or how objectively good or bad a movie is—not the masses who are critical for determining whether a film makes money.”
 
Movie critics: doing the thinking for the population by presenting their subjective opinions as gospel.

It's always amazed me how popular some movie critics have become, despite being blatantly biased towards/against certain genres, production companies, directors, actors, and actresses.
 
The problem is that cirtiq try to pull if "my taste is vey superrio to everytihng beeing made and im special " so its fits thir ego centric viewpoint to try to critize everything because it boost thier "Value" rather than actually delivering a truethfull review.
and not to forget its taste. i dont need random stranger i dont know triyng to judge if something is in my taste. i cna use friends for that because i know their taste an can adjust for that.
 
Aggregate review sites are stupid and I'm not really sure why they get so much power/pull from the industries they represent.
 
SPOILER ALERT!-- I also didn't think the movie was as bad as the critics implied it was. My only complaint is that they made it clear way too early in the movie that only a Bright could use a magic wand and then it became apparent way too early that Will Smith would turn out to be the Bright using the wand. Any time you're making a movie where the main character turns out to be the Chosen One and you make that obvious way to early in the movie, you're going to have problems.
 
As for the critics being off base with common tastes, this is not limited to just reviews. If you look at how various academies ignore popular superhero based movies, its a general snobbishness that extends far beyond critics. If they want to ignore actors performances like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark or Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman or Tom Holland as Peter Parker, because their roles are not serious enough and they don't express serious angst, that's very shortsighted on their part since just because a character's role is not serious doesn't mean there isn't really great acting involved. Even worse they choose to ignore so many directors who have to have tremendous vision to visualize scenes where there are a tremendous number of elements including some CGI just because the scenes aren't serious and don't involve a lot of character angst. The would'nt even take Spielberg serious until he made Schlinder's List.
 
The biggest issue is that film criticism has become way too political. Ideally film should be viewed with as little political lens possible. Politics are orthogonal to the quality of a film, assuming a film's political message isn't delivered in a ham-fisted way.
 
Gideon said:
Critics usually hate anything Sci-Fi or Fantasy related.
Click to expand...
they loved last jedi….
I didn't like it that much. rewatched force awakens and was like wtf happened to last jedi?!

OT, I like Bright. thought it was like a fantasy take on that 80s movie Alien Nation, minus the milk. I thought it tackled the racial tensions well without the whole SJW bs angle.
 
Movie reviews, at least from established reviewers, tend to be conducted from a classical perspective, which means that their reviews and consumer reactions are likely to differ.

The best movies are the ones where they agree- when the 'critics' dislike something that doesn't mean that it's not going to be entertaining.


[I liked Bright, but it was a bit slow and cliched- though that's fine for Netflix!]
 
So they're saying it was "It's not right to make light of Bright". Or, I'm I getting this confused with an UltraBrite ad?
 
Critics are disconnected from most movie goers because they're looking for different things.

I would say if a movie looks interesting to you (that's the most important factor), it's worth watching if the typical reviewers have at 50% or higher.
 
umeng2002 said:
Critics are disconnected from most movie goers because they're looking for different things.
Click to expand...

See, I don't buy the entire "critics are looking at films more critically" shtick because there are plenty of examples to the contrary where the unwashed movie-going masses were far more critical of a film than the critical consensus. For instance, take the aggregate scores of the last couple mainline Star Wars movies. The only way to think those movies are 90%+ is to turn off as many mental faculties as possible.

Critics are just ordinary people with ordinary opinions. They don't have any special skill or training that makes them more adept at ranking movies, but their writing skills are substantially above average. Besides that they're also fairly homogeneous and intellectually non-diverse. That's why they tend to voice similar opinions. The average critic nowadays holds left wing progressive beliefs, often bordering on SJW, and has little ability or desire to view a film outside of a political lens. If a film virtue signals to critics, it will absolutely get a better rating. On the other hand, the simple failure to prostrate yourself to SJW demands will earn a beating. Just look at what happened to Iron Fist.
 
If they dropped the stupid "racial" rubbish it would have been much better. Then it would have been more Lethal Weapon meets Lord if the Rings.
 
Well it had a few things going for it, fun cool idea that hasn't been overused and netflix ads/placement...

I enjoyed it, however it was far from perfect it had some really dumb things going on and lost a bit here and there but still the idea kept it at "solid watch" for me... And don't listen to what the critics say before seeing it, they kinda ruin stuff by explaining what and why it's bad, and I get it but some movies you just want to see and turn of your brain for an hour or two to enjoy...

And with the small amount of at least solid sci-fi/fantasy movies happening you can't be to picky and getting something that is a bit gritty and not kids friendly is icing on the cake... And on that topic I'm surprised that "Happy!" series got made and is great, dark, gritty, violent ex cop, a blue flying unicorn...
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMCM
like this
This movie was garbage. In what world is this considered either a good premise or successful movie? I saw it, and barely made it through. Disjointed storyline, shitty plot and the hollywood "heavy hitter" Will Smith fighting against corruption and racism while acting like E.T? Yea, i'm not gettin jiggy with it.
 
Bright was a fine movie. It wasn't a sequel, a reboot or based on some comic, which is refreshing as hell. As mentioned above, the JCVD show is epic. I barely watch network TV anymore. LetterKenny, Master of None, there are some great shows and they fill my day.

Sidebar, if you haven't watched What We Do In the Shadows, you are missing out. Its on Netflix now, its a quirky New Zealand product and is fantastic. Then you can look up the main star to see what he's done lately.
 
Garrick said:
If they dropped the stupid "racial" rubbish it would have been much better. Then it would have been more Lethal Weapon meets Lord if the Rings.
Click to expand...

Honestly they didn’t push the racial aspect nearly as much as I expected them.

I enjoyed the movie well enough, mostly though it really made me want to rewatch Training Day. Which I did.
 
A lot of commenters seem to ignore that the general public has pretty garbage taste in most things.

Saying Bright is better than critics say is one thing, but it also doesn't say much when the same service that brought it to you has very "successful" Adam Sandler productions on offer. The bar is still quite low for Netflix Originals imo.
 
I personally enjoyed the film, although some of the dialogue can be taken out of reference to be offensive.

I am delighted to hear there might be a sequel and rarely decide what I will watch based on critics.

I tend to rely on the people like me with minimal film experience who know what they like to watch.
 
Didn’t know anyone liked this movie. Thought it was targeted to middle school boys but maybe I’m just getting too old. Saw LOTR again the other day and wow is it really outdated now.
 
Kranium said:
A lot of commenters seem to ignore that the general public has pretty garbage taste in most things.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. If the general public had good taste we wouldn't have Transformers movies or Justin Bieber.

It's also worth noting that the people who go to sites like Tomatoes or IMDB to rate films are a self-selected subset of the general public. People who hold strongly positive or negative views on a film are also more likely to rate it. But even then, I don't think those individuals are, on average, any more or less adept at ranking movies than your typical film critic. The reason why the audience score seems so much more authoritative nowadays is because the sheer number of user ratings and lack of gate-keeping effectively hides the noise of bias, be it political or otherwise.
 
dwd999 said:
SPOILER ALERT!-- I also didn't think the movie was as bad as the critics implied it was. My only complaint is that they made it clear way too early in the movie that only a Bright could use a magic wand and then it became apparent way too early that Will Smith would turn out to be the Bright using the wand. Any time you're making a movie where the main character turns out to be the Chosen One and you make that obvious way to early in the movie, you're going to have problems.
Click to expand...

yeah it was predictable but that was only a small portion of the movie.. although i was really hoping there would be a twist and it was actually the orc dude that ended up being the Bright.. but saying that everything between the obvious beginning and the obvious ending was fun and enjoyable to watch.

bmango said:
Didn’t know anyone liked this movie. Thought it was targeted to middle school boys but maybe I’m just getting too old. Saw LOTR again the other day and wow is it really outdated now.
Click to expand...

i feel it was written in a way that anyone could enjoy it no matter what age they were.

Kranium said:
A lot of commenters seem to ignore that the general public has pretty garbage taste in most things.

Saying Bright is better than critics say is one thing, but it also doesn't say much when the same service that brought it to you has very "successful" Adam Sandler productions on offer. The bar is still quite low for Netflix Originals imo.
Click to expand...

lol i grew up watching adam sandler, guy's funny but obviously i've out grown that humor style these days. i'm not going to say people younger than me are idiots if they enjoy his movies since they're obviously targeted at a very specific age group.

i feel the difference between netflix is that they're willing to produce the things hollywood is to scared to produce because they're either to racial, aimed at to small of a demographic or can't fall within their bullcrap pg-13 rating so they can force feed it to teenagers even though the movie was never intended to be watched by teenagers.
 
Last edited:
heatlesssun said:
I think The Orville is the best rated new drama series on Fox since Empire. Great show IMHO, total ripoff of classic Star Trek but still pretty great.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't call it a rip off, it's more of an homage/mockery of Star Trek. They tackle the things that Star Trek was too afraid to, like what happens when you have a green jello alien wanting to "lay the pipe" to a human, but they still tackle the hard hitting things and show that not everything has a "happy" ending, like the whole "my baby is female, and needs to be changed to be accepted by society" bit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top