Suicide Squad will release on 5 August. Highly anticipated by fans since its trailer released in January this year, critics who watched the premier show of the film weren’t particularly impressed. News and reviews aggregation site –RottenTomatoes.com gave it an overall 31 % of ‘rotten tomatoes’. This has not been taken too kindly by fans of the comics, triggering a petition to shut the site down.
The film is based on DC Comics’ ‘Suicide Squad’ comprising of anti-heroes. Fans of the comics, unable to accept negative reviews of the films, have been slamming “the haters” on social media. The petition was started by username Abdullah Coldwater, a DC fan, on Change.org, because “Critics always give The DC Extended Universe movies unjust Bad Reviews… and that Affects people’s opinion [sic].”
The user behind the petition, however, clarified that the petition would not be able to shut down the site but aims “to deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people disagree with their reviews.” While the petition has been withdrawn, it had 17,614 supporters. Fans were unhappy with the ‘binary’ system of the site, disapproving the idea of giving scores to films based on what critics have to say. The site was even accused of being biassed, favouring films from Marvel Studios more than DC.
Aggregating reviews from top critics like Roger Ebert and Los Angeles Times, Rotten Tomatoes called the film disappointing with a ‘muddled plot, thinly written characters, and choppy directing‘. The site, unlike other review aggregators like Metacritic.com, tends to skew more toward traditional media, with many internet-based fan and press outlets seldom represented. According to ComicBook.com, there’s a perception that Marvel Studios have more success with traditional critics because they’ve ‘cracked the code‘ to making action films into commendable superhero stories.
At the same time, as The Independent had observed, the petition is technically against Warner Brothers Pictures, the film’s distributor, as Rotten Tomatoes was once owned by the media giants. The film has also not been officially released yet, making the petition appear more ludicrous.
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The cast of the film also tried defending the film,. “The critics have been absolutely horrific, they’re really, really horrible. You know, I just don’t think they like superhero movies,” said Cara Delvingne, speaking to Reuters. “I made the movie for real people who live in the real world. I made the movie for people who actually love movies and go and see movies,” said director David Ayer, responding to all the negative reviews.
The super-villain film, directed by David Ayer, includes many Hollywood A-listers such as Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Cara Delvingne as Enchantress, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller.
Feature Image Credit: independent.co.uk