There, I said it.
I know The Ringer covered this a while ago, but hear me out, my take is a little different.
I should clarify that RT is the worst place to go for a movie's ranking. To make my case, I'll refer to 2016's most divisive film (according to my What's App group chat) Suicide Squad. Full disclosure, I liked it, it was fun – it was batshit crazy, but it was fun. And yes, I knew exactly wtf I was getting into ahead of time and it wasn't The Dark Knight. But let's talk about its RT score, which is currently at 25%. I had a much more enjoyable time watching it than a 25% score would suggest. Herein lies RT's fatal flaw; they operate on a simple thumbs up/down rating system. So, critics aren't asked "how much did you like the movie?", but "did you like the movie?" That's eff'd up. Can we not dig a little deeper my friends? Where's the follow-up questions? In my informal poll (please don't ask me for my margin of error) of 14 friends that saw it, the 13 responses averaged a 5.69/10 rating (Jeremy* said "why are we still talking about this POS movie", which I couldn't quantify), which I'd have to say is a much more accurate rating of the movie's quality. To confirm this, all one would have to do is go to IMDb.com and see that it currently sports a respectable, if not glamorous 6.2/10 (I gave it a 6).
I'm not so much hating the player (the critics) as I am hating the game (RT). If you are paid to say which movies are good for a living, then ya, I see why you'd thumbs down this one (who were the 25% that thumbs up'd it? And how much were they paid by the WB?). My problem is, too many people put too much stock in this faulty rating system and it needs to stop. Won't somebody please think of the children!
On the other side of the coin, both Inside Out and Zootopia boasted about their 100% RT numbers during their theatrical runs (both are currently at 98%, because some critic apparently hates Disney), but those weren't perfect movies (I loved them both), they were more like the 8.2/10 and 8/10's they got on IMDb.com.
So for the love of Morgan Freeman, please don't use RT to decide if you're going to like (or watch) a movie, next time just visit IMDb.com
NOTE: I am in no way shape or form affiliated with IMDb.com, but would love to be, so hmu IMDb, I gots ideas for ya.
*not his real name